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MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



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MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, PSYCHOLOGY, MAGNETISM, 
MESMERISM, AND DISEASES. 

In QLwlvz Chapters. 



B. BROWN WILLIAMS, M. D. 



NEW YORK: 
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

CLINTON HALL, 131 NASSAU STREET. 
Boston, Hi Washington St.! 1854. [London. No. 142 Strand, 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 

B. BROWN WILLIAMS, 

in the ClerK s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 

of New York. 



N. V. STEREOTYPE ASSOCIATION, 

201 William Street. 



TO 

JAMES JOINER, ESQ.. 

? ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, 

WASHINGTON, N. C, 

Dear Sir, 
Having from our early boyhood enjoyed the pleasure of your friend- 
ship, the impressions which those associations made upon me have never 
been effaced from my remembrance, but have grown with my growth and 
strengthened with my strength; I beg, therefore, as a slight token of rny 
regard, to dedicate to you this little work 

Very respectfully, your friend, 

THE AUTHOR, 



PREFACE. 



The twelve chapters comprising this little work, are the outlines of the 
lectures which we have been delivering for the last few years upon the 
interesting subjects of nature and mind. They are merely our deductions, 
and are presented for the inspection of the world, in as plain a manner as 
it was possible for us to do under existing circumstances. All that we 
wish in relation to the new ideas respecting physical and mental absorp- 
tion is, that they may be understood in the manner in which they are ex- 
pressed. They are not intended for the purpose of taking precedence 
over the received philosophy of man's physical and mental nature, but for 
the purpose of presenting the expressed relation and dependence of his 
being upon the elements of the universe. 

We have nothing to do with the speculations and philosophy of other 
men, nor do we desire any thing from the world but a careful perusal of 
the following chapters, upon what we suppose to be the most interesting 
subjects that pertain to human existence. If the reader shall conclude 
that our deductions are in accordance with the finger-boards of nature, 
and shall see himself, by means of the lights presented, more plainly, it 
is all that we desire. It is clear, however, that the present exhibitions in 
mental alchemy cannot be properly analyzed by the rules of mental and 
physical philosophy which now obtain. The application of its rules al- 
ready have made hundreds look with wonder and amazement, and exclaim 
they are supernatural, while others cry humbug and collusion at first, 
and after finding they are mistaken, speak of them as doing away with the 
miracles of better and former days. * 

Nature, therefore, should be sifted, as far as we are able to do so, in 
order to a proper understanding of the subject, that the facts con- 
nected therewith may become intelligible. To prove their untruth would 
be to prove that two parallel straight lines would ultimately meet. 



Ti PREFACE. 



It matters not if lecturers have presented the inferior departments of 
this subject in such a ridiculous light as to produce disgust. It is still a 
truth, and will remain so as long as man is in the possession of a nervous 
system, and is dependent upon external nature for his vitality. What 
others, however, have done and written, is a matter between them and the 
public, and they must stand or fall according as the strength of the plat- 
form which they have erected may be. 

Without egotism on our part, we would state, that all the private classes 
we have ever taught have given us cards expressing their full satisfaction 
in every particular in the instructions received. We have now in our pos- 
session the cards of more than a hundred classes, some of which numbered 
from fifty to three hundred gentlemen, among whom are many of the most 
learned men in the land. All, without an exception, speak the same lan- 
guage in relation to the instructions and the philosophy advanced in sup- 
port of the astounding phenomena exhibited. Therefore, if the science of 
mental alchemy is not true, it certainly stands without a parallel in the 
history of the world. 

The most learned have said, that the philosophy of this condition of 
things can never be explained. We do not say that it is explained in the 
following chapters ; but the deductions which they contain are the fruits 
of an humble indigenous plant of the old north state, and they are re- 
spectfully presented to the reader for his approval or disapproval. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The relation of Mind to Matter — Action and Reaction of the Nervous System — Analogy 
between the Corporeal System of Man and the Universe — Man's Spiritual Nature an 
Emanation from the Spiritual World Page 9 

CHAPTER II. 

The Elements or Systems comprising the Material World— An Error in Medical Prac- 
tice — Nature our unerring Guide — Man an Epitome of the Universe — The Nature and 
Office of Electricity— The Spiritual System of Man 20 

CHAPTER III. 

Man's Spiritual System further Discussed — The Subject of Communication between 
Man and the Spiritual World Considered, and its Natural Impossibility Presented — 
The Entrance of a Being into the Spiritual World analagous to the Introduction of a 
Human Being into this Life 33 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Natural and Spiritual World — Their different Systems, Stratas, and Elements— 
They are both Created — They are not God — The Spiritual and Material Nature of Man 
Considered — Distinction between Mind and Intellect — Motion the Result of the Spirit 
— The Law of Equilibrium does not hold with Mind as with Matter 43 

CHAPTER V. 

Doctrine of Absorption — Clod of Earth and Water — The Falling of an Apple — Mind 
adapted to Impressions — The Body to Absorption — External Elements — Reactive differ- 
ence between Mind and Matter — Mind and its own Thunder-showers — Its wonderful 
Nature — Innate Development of its own Faculties — Mixed up Condition of the Organs 
in Mental Philosophy 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Influence of Atmospherical Electricity upon the Nervous System of Man — Ele- 
ments in the External World Produce like Elements in our Bodies— The Electro- 
Reactive Trinity of the Nervous System— Our Natural and Spiritual Vitality is Induct- 
ive — The Instinctive Faculties come from the same Source as our Spirits — Influence 
Exerted by Impressions against the Power of the Will— Striking Instances Related — 
Method of ascertaining the Electricel Condition of the System. 71 



viii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Reactive Condition of the Nervous System further considered — Action of Will and Mind 
— Conflicting Forces of Electricity — Equality produces Death — Illustration respecting 
Motion and Life— Oneness of Action on the part of the Will of the Infinite Page 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Philosopher's Stone — Power of the Will — Absorption, Extraneous Impressions, Will, 
and Vis-medicatrix Naturse — Philosophy of Sleep — Insanity the Reverse of the Pos- 
itive Electro-reactive State — Mosaic Account of Creation — Experiment in Vegetative 
Creation — Geologists answered 98 

CHAPTER IX. 

Alchemistic Control — The Reason of that Control — Intelligence, the Result of Electrical 
Agency — One System more Reactive than Another — Succession of Electrical Disturb- 
ances — Physical Trinity of the Nervous System — Kow to Ascertain that Trinity — How 
to Change its Reactivity — Will of God — Oneness of Action of the Will in Producing 
Reactive Changes — How to Experiment Properly — Influences not Supernatural — Re- 
quest to Physicians and Skeptics— Cannot Square-rule the Nervous System as it now 
is—The Reason Why 11 8 

- ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
CHAPTER X. 

Sir David Brewster — Nature and the Will of Deity — Example— Philosophic Necessity se 
aside — Skepticism by Magnetizing — Zinc and Copper Plates — Buck Eyes in Piles- 
Fluid of the Ulnar Nerve — The Name, Electrical Psychology — Card of Approbation — 
Its Practice Publicly — Gazing at an Object — The great Desideratum 140 

HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 
CHAPTER XL 

Vitality of the Brain— Atmospheric Undulations— The Senses— Impressions supported 
beyond Consciousness— Mental Faculties— Their Secretions— Thought and Electricity 
—The Thoughts of Others— Their Reception explained— Two Ducks in a Pond— Ger- 
man Writer and Teacher— Case in Miiledgeville, Geo.— Practice of Magnetism and Mes- 
merism—A Card— Dr. Eisdale— The Effects of these Conditions upon the System . 152 

DISEASES AND THEIR MODE 0? CURE. 
CHAPTER XII. 

The Brain— Throwing a Stone— Its Disturbance of the Nervous System— Co-cperativo 
Influence of Mind— The Vis-medicatrix Naturse— Source of Mental and Physical De- 
velopment—Consultations, Physical and Mental— The Will— Involuntary Reflex Dis- 
charges—Life not Electricity, but a Principle of Spirit— How Developed— Mental Im- 
pressions Authoritative— An Appeal to Nature 171 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



CHAPTER I. 

The relation of Mind to Matter — Action and Reaction of the Nervous System — Analogy 
between the Corporeal System of Man and the Universe — Man's Spiritual Nature an 
Emanation from the Spiritual World. 

In taking a careful view of the past as well as the present, 
it is clear, that philosophers materially differ in their deduc- 
tions in regard to the relation which mind bears to matter, 
and in regard to the legitimate action of the nervous system 
in the support of physical and mental operations. 

We wish it distinctly understood, that we do not venture 
deductions in opposition to those that now obtain ; but our 
purpose is merely to call attention to the practical phenomena 
that mental alchemy has developed. If the philosopher or 
physiologist should, from these developments, discover any 
thing deficient, or any thing that should be added to the great 
intellectual and physical fabric, or any thing that may have a 
tendency to cause it still further to unfold its mysteries, the 
object we have in view will be realized. Without any dis- 
play of words then, we simply mean, by this term, mental 
alchemy, the expressed action of the nervous system in car- 
drying impressions to the mind, and the reaction of the mind 
upon the same, in the support of its mental as well as phys- 



10 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

ical nature. Action and reaction, therefore, become the two 
important lights to direct us, so that we may understandingly 
realize the great principles of human nature, as developed 
within the periphery of nervo-vital action. 

The organized arrangement of each human being is a sys- 
tem of the highest finite order ; and as it is perfectly clear 
that every system presupposes a center, we recognize the 
brain as the great vital center of each physical organization. 
The solar system itself is but a physical organization, the 
center of which is the sun. All the parts have a family de- 
pendence upon each other, and in their operations above, 
below, and around us, we behold each finer division playing 
harmoniously into other coarser divisions, and in these, the 
most sublime of all operations, it is clear that, vitally, the 
sun is the main point or center. How much can we under- 
stand, in a natural sense, about the nature of the being we 
call man, unless we carefully view him in his relation to this 
great system, upon which his very existence depends 7 Must 
w r e not lay before us a something, that in some degree cor- 
responds to his existence, in order to understand the laws 
physiologically by which his being is governed? Can the 
mind understandingly absorb an impression, save by contrast- 
ing it with something else ? Can the mind, while in connec- 
tion with the body, understand the meaning of the word 
good, except by contrast with bad ? Could the mind appre- 
ciate the superiority of intellect of a Webster, if there were 
none inferior with which to contrast it ? Is it possible, then, 
that the spirit of man ever absorbed an impression, intellect- 
ually and understandingly, unless it passed through the fiery 
ordeal of contrast? If not, we are compelled to consider 
the different systems of man in their relations and aptitudes 
to this grand and physicial organization, which has the sun 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 11 

for its center. Is there any other through the light of which 
we can properly see him ? Is there any other that gives the 
materials for his body than the elements of the globe — water, 
atmosphere, gases, and electricity ? If there is not, then we 
hold that this is the one with which he should be contrasted, 
for the purpose of looking at him through the light of nature. 
What is man? If we were simply to present his physical 
and mental emotions, as a being capable of becoming im- 
pressed with a love for his Creator, for nature, and for art, 
and in the possession of powers which can reflect him back 
to the time when the morning sun received his primeval step 
as the great center of our solar system, and in this wide do- 
main of fancy, of pleasure, and of thought, to experience, and 
almost feel, the influence of that indescribable jubilee, when 

" The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for 

joy," 

this answer would fall far short of the points essential to the 
practical investigation of the subject now before us. 

We therefore take nature at her w T ord, and answer, that 
he is a finite being, and, so far as his physical creation ex- 
tends, made on mechanical principles ; that is, that he is a 
being whose physical nature, at least, is found to possess, 
finitely, all the different kingdoms, elements, and compart- 
ments which compose the universe. As such, if we have 
before us, as a part of the external fabric, the globe or ter- 
restrial, as its coarsest division, we have in man his bony 
system, and adjacent elements or departments, correspondent 
thereto, as his coarsest division. If we rise one step higher, 
to the aqueous kingdom, with its circulation filling the ter- 
restrial with its moistening and soluble presence, we have 
corresponding thereto in man his blood and fluids, frolicking 



12 MENTAL ALCHEMY 

through their fixed, and sometimes anastomosing channels, 
even down to the very marrow or pith of the bones. If we 
rise still higher, we find another kingdom or division, extend- 
ing to the distance of fifty miles above the earth's surface, 
called the gaseous, atmospherical, or respiratory; we have 
corresponding thereto in man, the lungs and their appendages, 
as his atmospheric and gaseous department, for the constant 
respiration, retention, and consumption of the elements of 
these external systems, as seen in the economy of respiration. 

If the theory of Newton be true (and philosophers almost 
generally, in this particular, do not differ), we shall find that 
we have another kingdom or division of the external world 
extending to the sun — if you please an emanation or effluvium 
from the sun — known as the ether of Newton, the electricity 
of Franklin, and the electric fluid of Sir James Murray. 
This, it will be perceived, comes from a distance of ninety-five 
millions of miles to our globe, from the great material head 
of the external solar and physical organization. 

Has not man a nervous system, which, in its operative 
movements, at least, speaks within the nature of this eman- 
ation, w T hich also extends from the center to the periphery of 
his physical organization ? 

We have now nam^d four different kingdoms or divisions 
of the external world, the elements of w T hich are, unquestion- 
ably, absorbed by the different systems in man, and by this 
absorption alone is his finite system supported and main- 
tained. Hence there is an adaptation of means to ends — on 
the part of the stomach to the reception of food and water, 
on the part of the lungs to the reception and absorption of 
the atmosphere and gases, and on the part of the nervous 
system to the absorption or respiration of the electrical fluid 
of the atmosphere. 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 13 



At the fourth we would stop, if our interpretation of 
things would warrant us to do so, and present the hypothesis 
of the attractive force by the electrical or last-mentioned 
system, as many have done, as being supreme ; but almost 
knowing, and fully believing, such hypothesis to be erroneous, 
we shall name the fifth, or last, or interior kingdom, as the 
spiritual, from which, from the mechanical connection of 
things, all that we have named, according to the constitution 
of the universe, not only absorb their vitality, but present a 
spiritual influence interiorly to the electrical throughout na- 
ture. We see an illustration of this in the spirit that looks 
out from behind the sparklings of the eye. 

When we look abroad into nature, therefore, is there any 
thing unreasonable in the supposition that from this interior 
kingdom or world come motion, power, and life, as well as 
the vital energy of man ? Must not that part of man, in 
the very nature of things, which possesses the power to rea- 
son and to think, receive its existence from this interior 
world, of which it is a part and parcel, as much as his ma- 
terial body, with its different systems, receive their elements 
from the material world of which it is a part and parcel? 
Does not the doctrine of absorption, by the adaptation of 
means to ends, as well as the very nature of our existence, 
force upon us this conclusion ? Hence there is truth in the 
hypothesis, that the universe itself is composed of two grand 
and distinct systems, with divisions which play harmoniously 
into each other division, the natural and the spiritual. Look 
at them, and behold the spiritual acting upon the electrical, 
the electrical, with its incomprehensible elasticity, acting 
upon the globe and its appendages, producing all its various 
movements, that our meaning may be clearly understood. 

Infinite and sublime are the multifarious operations that 

2 



14 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

come within this consideration of the universe, the center of 
which is the sun, and the circumference illimitable space. 

Now ; look at the mind or spirit through the brain, as it 
acts upon the elastic fluid of the nervous sj^stem, producing 
the voluntary and involuntary discharges to its circumference, 
and to the relaxation and contraction of the muscles of the 
heart in the vital movement, of from twenty-five to forty-five 
pounds of blood throughout the circulating system, with its 
periodical revolutions, and we have here, finitely, a corre- 
sponding operation. 

We now have before us, clearly and distinctly, five systems 
or kingdoms, which comprise the universe, and five corre- 
sponding thereto, finitely, which are directly concerned in the 
operations of special human existence. It is easy enough to 
perceive the harmonious action with which each division plays 
into each other division in the support of their vital opera- 
tions, one being dependent upon the other. Are they not 
more and more rarefied and perfect as the} 7 rise above each 
other? And is not each coarser so constructed and built as 
to absorb the finer ? Is it not plain, when we look abroad 
into the external world, at the rarefied and aerial condition of 
the electrical fluid, and at the less rarefied condition of the 
atmosphere and gases, that the latter permits the absorption 
of the former — the one above and beyond it ; and the less 
rarefied condition of the aqueous division permits the absorp- 
tion of the atmosphere and gases ; and the still less rarefied 
condition of the globe permits the absorption of water. 

Here we have the doctrine of universal absorption as it 
obtains throughout nature. Behold the presence of the elec- 
trical fluid everywhere, and object, if you can, to the idea of 
this fluid filling the legitimate office of the nervous system of 
the world ; but still it remains as the great chemical solvent, 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 15 



as well as the motive power, of nature. There it is, and 
will ever be, the great connecting link between the spiritual 
* and the material world, as the nervous system of man is the 
connecting one between his mental and physical existence. 

What lesson did the God of nature impart in creating the 
different divisions of the universe which are tangible — one 
more and more rarefied and perfect than another, as they rise 
above each other, and as they thus rise requiring less and 
less force to move them, at least, in bulk — if it were not by 
analogy to lead the mind, in its contemplations, to that king- 
dom whose very nature is motion and purity? Does it not 
require more force to move the same bulk of the particles of 
the globe than it does of the same bulk of water — more 
force to move the same bulk of water than atmosphere — more 
to move the same bulk of atmosphere than electricity? And 
does not the smallest touch, or close contact even, give im- 
pulse to the electrical fluid? If so, it is presented in its offi- 
cial, mechanical, and chemical relations as the fourth king- 
dom — not of nature alone, but of the universe — standing, as 
it were, poised between the two worlds. If it is in a condi- 
tion *so easy to move, and in its passage outstripped from 
point to point only by thought, we see no reason why the one 
still beyond in rarefaction, purity, and power, may not be 
looked upon as the highest and most sublime of all kingdoms 
composed of systems and elements, with their different stra- 
tas — if we may be allowed the expression, to be understood — 
entirely different in all their particulars. This, then, must 
be, in the nature of things, the presignification of all lower 
systems of a nature to move and to react, perfect, indestruct- 
ible, and eternal. From this, man derives his spiritual body, 
and all animals below him their instinctive and reactive na- 
ture, according to their different instinctive and spiritual 



16 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

origins. Hence the mind of man is not of a nature to desire 
sleep, but simply the resting of one of its properties — the 
will — for the recuperation of the vital forces of the body. 

The nature to feel, taste, smell, see, and hear, as well as 
the various grades of instinct, and intellectual susceptibility 
of thought and power, all belong to the bodies derived from 
this interior world. 

The spirit of man, from the nature of its origin, is sta- 
tioned on a mental elevation, where he may be rendered capa- 
ble of comprehending the relation between cause and effect. 
And, although in common with instinctive nature, chained to 
earth by the laws of gravitation, and compelled to move upon 
the same clods with the worm, yet, by the high prerogative 
of his being, he can, w T ith one mental effort, elevate his ma- 
jestic brow above all material incumbrances, and experience 
sweet converse with the skies. 

If, then, the mechanical connection of these different kind- 
doms of the external and internal universe before us are 
plainly seen, a specimen of architecture magnificent and 
awfully sublime in all its parts, as well as supreme in the 
splendor of its workmanship, opens itself before us, as a pro- 
duction worthy of its great Author. Will not a finite de- 
velopment of the same systems, put together upon mechanical 
principles, with their great variety of physical and mental 
dispensations, constitute all that we can possibly conceive of 
in the special existence of a human being? Look at these 
as they now stand finitely before us, and do we not see man, 
in his natural and spiritual fabric, in a light too clear to re- 
quire further explanation 1 In fact, a combination of these 
different systems and elements makes the human being, while 
their high and proper use, physiologically and mentally, 
makes the man. 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 17 

This is our answer, in a general sense, to the question, 
" What is man?" In an especial consideration we desire 
now to look at him for one moment. Is it a truth, that the 
solid and gaseous portions of the universe lie at the founda- 
tion of the existence of the solids and fluids of nan's body 1 
If this be so, it will also follow, from the special adaptation 
of means to ends, that the atmospheric and gaseous system 
has as much to do with the vital existence of his respiratory 
system. Does the electrical impart to the nervous system of 
man, as well as to the voltaic eel, its peculiar nature and quick- 
ness of action? If so, it must have something to do with its 
vital and special existence. Now, then, we have the doctrine 
of special absorption before us, through the light of which 
we behold the fluids and solids of nature absorbed and di- 
gested into the system, forming bone and muscle ; the lungs 
absorb the atmosphere and gases, by the opening and closing 
of which we constantly absorb a finite portion from the great 
respiratory system of external nature ; and by the respira- \ 
tory action of the nerves, minutely ramified upon the surface, 
we absorb (mostly w T hen asleep) a supply of electricity from 
the atmosphere. These exercise their specific influence, and 
impart their peculiar nature to our existence, according to 
their condition and the power of our systems to absorb the 
good and reject the bad. 

It certainly appears, from the nature of things, conclusive, 
that our mental system and being is just as much an emana- 
tion from, and bears the same relation to, the interior or 
spiritual w T orld beyond, that our material bodies do to those 
we have named as systems with their different strata^ and 
elements. In the very constitution of the universe this must 
be so. It is impossible for finite power even to imagine the 
existence of fluids and solids in the body without the prior 



18 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

existence of fluids and solids in nature. When and where, 
we respectfully ask, did nature eve* speak a different lan- 
guage in relation to the spiritual existence of man ? In the 
wide domain of fancy, to which the minds of men have been 
attracted, we are aware that they have spoken differently, in 
consequence of which, man has been looked upon almost as 
an isolated being. But we see man rising forth in bis 
majesty from two worlds, with a spirit and a body which ap- 
parently make but one. The one, that reasons, thinks, per- 
ceives, and feels, itself unseen by mortal eyes, comes, in the 
nature of things, from the world also unseen by mortal eyes. 
The other, which is seen, emanates from the world whieh is 
seen ; and by the great doctrine of special absorption, which 
connects the spirit of man with the spiritual world and his 
body with the natural world, are his two existences main- 
tained. 

But if the philosophy of many be true, his body is in pos- 
session of a something that came from nothing, or, in other 
words, that something is merely the result of certain impres- 
sions, and not an emanation from the invisible world, which 
seems to be the highest link in the great chain of creation, 
filled with different systems and stratas, of which the ma 
terial world is but a mere impression. 

Now, then, if we look at the special creation of man 
through the imaginations of other men, and not through the 
real developments of the universe, and expect, under such 
circumstances, to understand the physical and mental phe- 
nomena which the absorption of impressions from the author- 
ity of the nervous system presents, our disappointment is 
sure. All the systems that make the human being have a 
mutual dependance upon each other, and as is the m case in 
the external world, they, in their turn of relations, acknowl- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 19 



edge their vital dependence upon those that are higher, and 
those that are higher acknowledge the supreme sovereignty 
of the universe ; that is, those that are put together finitely 
to make the man are not independent, but constantly receive, 
by inductive absorption, the elements of all their vital move- 
ments. So far as we are able to understand the mechanical, 
natural, and constitutional spirit of things, we cannot believe 
the mere opinions of men, when a belief in those opinions 
would cause us to isolate the special from the general devel- 
opments of the universe. They are together by the attract- 
ive law of God. They were moved into existence by His 
almighty fiat, and we have no reason to believe, therefore, 
that the first link will be broken to accommodate the imagin- 
ative hypothesis of mortality, or to suit the views of a world 
of finite beings, when those views separate man from the 
great fountain of nature and of spirit. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Elements or Systems comprising the Material World — An Error in Medical Prac- 
tice — Nature our unerring Guide — Man an Epitome of the Universe — The Nature and 
Office of Electricity — The Spiritual System of Man. 

It would, perhaps, be well to remark, that the subject al- 
ready before us appears too vast for finite comprehension. 
One thing is certain, however, that the universe is unques- 
tionably divided off into systems and stratas, and that one 
is absorbed by the other. This, we know, could not be, if 
they were of the same degree of rarefaction. 

Now, then, the question may with some degree of propriety 
be asked, what is the universe ? We answer, that, separate 
and apart /from the ^terrestrial division, thl aqueous/atmo- 
spheric, electrical, and spiritual, the mind of man could have 
no idea of the universe. Is not each division more and more 
rarefied and pure, as well as more powerful in its convulsive 
movements, as it rises above the other ? Has the convulsive 
arm of the stirring gale the power of the thunderbolt ? Has 
the thunderbolt the power of the mind which spoke, and 
through its agency controlled the waves of the ocean ? 

What, then, is the material world? We answer, that the 
terrestrial, the oceanic, the atmospheric, and electrical di- 
visions, mechanically put together, as they are, above, below, 
and around us, constitute the material world. These dis- 
missed from the mind, any knowledge of materiality would be 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 21 

impossible. And we would respectfully ask, were not these 
different systems spoken into existence by that Being to whose 
inspection the wisdom of all worlds is but fearful foolishness ? 
Can we expect that nature, which seems primarily to reside 
in the fourth system of the universe, or the electrical fluid, 
dispensing her positive and negative influences in the >same, 
over the material w T orld, w T ould loose her strong-hold, even if 
she had the authority from that Being who arms her with 
power ? Can she cling for vital support to finite arms, tossed 
about on the tumultuous ocean of conjecture, or accommodate 
herself to the rules of imaginative philosophy 1 

If, then, all the rules which govern every system of nature, 
in a general sense, primarily, reside in the electricity of the 
universe, as well as specially in the nervous system — one the 
agent of the power that obtains in the spiritual world, the 
other the agent of the finite power that obtains in the mate- 
rial body — how can we expect a change of those rules to cor- 
respond with our peculiar deductions, stimulated as they are 
in many instances by the wildest secretions of the imagina- 
tion ? Look at it. Was there not a time when the learned 
philosophy of the land, in a medical consideration, spoke to 
thirsty and diseased nature, burning with fever, demanding 
water, You mistake — you do not want it — you do not require 
it, and you shall not have it? Did they not, clothed with the 
power of science, and the medical usages of the day, even set 
a watch over the patient at the midnight hour, to prevent him 
from allaying his thirst — to prevent him from drinking at the 
living fountain of nature, because they believed, by the rules 
which had been established for them in physiology, that if 
the patient did drink, it would be certain death 1 Did not 
learned men absorb these rules, and were they not governed 
by them at the bedside of patients'? Did they not honestly 



22 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

believe them to be true 1 And what occasioned that belief, if it 
were not their education 1 

These rules, then, did not occasion the stomach to be any 
the less adapted to the reception of water, nor did not pre- 
vent the mind from craving it for the body. When they said 
it would be certain death, under these circumstances, to take 
this beverage of life, was it nature or men by their actions 
endeavoring to change, ignorantly, the order of things to ac- 
commodate their notions and theory ? We leave the reader 
to decide, and would pass it by as one of the things that were, 
if we could ; but when we think of the hundreds and thou- 
sands that have gone into eternity, while their spirits were 
making the last, long, lingering effort to articulate their 
wants, and their best friends by them refusing to the very 
last this beverage, in consequence of their education, we feel 
it impossible to do so. 

It is certainly better to hearken to the voice of nature than 
to the notions of man. This change, like all others of this 
nature, is impossible, for in this case we know that every 
man has a certain quantity of fluids in his body, and when 
that quantity is in the least degree diminished, it is not irra- 
tional to suppose that nature should crave the corresponding 
element which has thus been consumed in the body. If 
seventy-five parts of a body be composed of water, and five 
of those parts are consumed beyond the supply, it is certainly 
not unreasonable to suppose that thirst should prevail until 
those five parts are supplied ; and that a disease correspond- 
ing to the nature of the deficit of the individual's aqueous 
idiosyncracy would take place, just exactly in proportion as 
the consumption is greater than the supply. 

Now, then, is it quackery to refuse to naturo that which 
she wants for physiological purposes ? If so, scientific men 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 23 

in high places — in this particular, at least — at one time 
practiced, if they do not now, quackery in the extreme. Ex- 
tend the mind, then, to the bedside of the patient in this con- 
dition, and behold the physician dishing out drugs to fill the 
indications of thirst, instead of the pure beverage of life, and 
you see what men once called a truly scientific performance. 
Truly may it be said, 

" Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn." 

The application of the rules of nature to many things that 
now are looked upon as legitimate, would show, beyond a 
reasonable doubt, that we do not as yet hearken to the voice 
from on high, saying, u If a child ask for bread, will ye give 
him a stone V 9 In other words, if sick and diseased nature 
presents unmistakable indications, are they not disregarded, 
and the patient tortured to suit the theories and notions of 
men, merely because they have the name of science? True, 
their theories and notions have the support of those in high 
places, who endeavor to look with scorn and contempt upon 
the simplicity of nature, and particularly upon any human 
being who proposes to examine for himself, and to call atten- 
tion to experiments outside of the ordinary routine. But 
nothing can be more clear, if we wish to understand the true 
principles of mental philosophy, than that our experiments 
must be performed upon those beings who are in possession 
of the highest attributes of the spiritual world. 

Electrical experiments upon human beings are the only ex- 
periments that can obtain, understanding]}', in the true in- 
vestigation of physiology and mental philosophy. 

If experiments were proposed to take place by electrical 
or galvanic agency with a frog, a cat, a dog, or a monkey, as 



24 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

the subject, for the purpose of ascertaining the relations of 
man to voltaic nature, this would be all right, scientific, and 
pleasant. From these experiments deductions would be 
made, and volumes written and sent out to the world, and 
stored up among the scientific treasures of the library, be- 
cause the experiments would be consistent and of a high or- 
der. Scientific and learned gentlemen could see them with- 
out bending their necks, or stooping to quackery. Is this 
not saying to the world that you can learn more about the 
mind of man from experiments upon a frog, a dog, a cat, or 
a monkey, than you can from experiments upon man him- 
self? How can it be possible that voltaic experiments upon 
the lower animals can fill the great cup of mental investiga- 
tion? But it really does seem, from the action of many 
learned men, that they are better satisfied with the electro- 
physiological experiments with animals, by means of a gal- 
vanic battery, upon this point. How do those experiments 
prove that there are two bodies in man in mysterious con- 
nection with each other 1 Have they ever presented any ex- 
periment, save that which is involved in physical reaction 1 
If not, they certainly fall far short of filling the indications 
demanded in the true system of mental philosophy. May 
we be excused for asking the question, what do gentlemen 
mean when thus, as it were, entombed within books, which 
only contain the notions of others, they say by their actions, 
that nature has unfolded her last leaf of physical and mental 
progression? Do they expect us still to hearken to their 
voice, that speaks forth from such terrestrial caverns of con- 
sistency and harmony, disapproving every experiment not 
recognized in their scheme, or not falling within their pre- 
scribed rules ? From this source, under the circumstances, 
we hear the words humbug and collusion. If they expect the 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 25 

world still to believe that they are in a condition to entirely 
understand the meaning of those words in this day and age, 
when men are beginning to think for themselves, they will 
surely find themselves mistaken. The high prerogative- 
character — which God himself has stamped upon the mental 
chamber of man, would seem to be freeing itself from old no- 
tions and prejudices, and to be already speaking a language 
plain and forcible in relation to this matter. 

We have digressed from our subject in this way for the 
purpose of presenting the impossibility of the systems and 
elements of man maintaining their healthy condition when 
isolated from those external, from which they continually 
draw ; and to show more plainly the entire impossibility of 
man, with all his ingenuity, changing the relations of the hu- 
man system to the corresponding systems of the universe in 
the least degree — whether by science or ignorance, it is all 
the same — a surrender, on the part of nature, would as soon 
be made to the one as to the other. 

To return, then, in an especial sense, for the purpose of 
getting at the pith of our subject, if our deductions of na- 
ture be in the least degree true, man is composed of five 
distinct systems or kingdoms, each one mechanically fitted 
into the other. They are his bony or terrestrial structure, or 
skeleton ; his aqueous, or circulating ; his atmospheric, or re- 
spiratory system ; his electrical, or nervous ; and his spiritual. 
These constitute the material and spiritual existence of 
man. Let us inspect them a little more closely, as the un- 
derstanding of our subject seems to demand it. Then the 
question naturally comes up, what do you mean by the ma- 
terial world, having the sun as its center 1 We mean, first, 
the globe on which we mcve ; secondly, the water, upon and 
within that globe ; thirdly, the atmosphere and gases, ra- 



26 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

dialing from the globe's surface to the distance of fifty 
miles; and, fourthly, the electric fluid, extending from the 
sun to the earth. These constitute the material world, the 
elements which compose it being mechanically fitted into 
each other. Dismiss these from the mind, and, upon the in- 
vestigation of our subject, materially, a blank stands before 
us. Taken as a whole, they constitute a grand physical or- 
ganization, which has the sun for its center. 

If we could know nothing of nature, independently of 
positive and negative influences, manifested by different elec- 
trical dispensations, must it not be clear, that the effects of 
these influences upon matter fill all the indications which 
learned men have assigned to nature ? Do they not primar- 
ily reside in the nervous system of the world, and can we 
not easily perceive their path, and the part of the universe 
over which they legitimately reign ? 

The electro-reactive trinity, which in this system obtains, 
is too mysterious for comprehension. All that we are per- 
mitted to know, in relation to this, the fourth system of the 
universe, which connects heaven to earth and earth to heaven, 
is, first, that it is possessed of a fluid capable of infinite ex- 
pansion ; secondly, that that fluid manifests two different in- 
fluences, the positive and the negative ; and that a certain 
relation of these two influences, although diametrically op- 
posed to each other, seems to overlook and govern the out- 
goings and incomings of nature. We can then easily see 
before us what is meant by the material world; and that 
every being that is capable of absorbing the electrical fluid 
lives, of necessity, on this side of that great kingdom. The 
atmosphere, the gases, the water, and the clods, alike absorb 
it. They are this side of it; this fluid insinuating itself 
within them all, conveying a certain relation of these forces, 



MENTAL ALCHEMY., 27 

presents the material world, in one sense, as a great chemical 
laboratory. Decomposition and recomposition seem to be 
one of its leading features. Spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter certainly speak a different relation of these two forces. 
All the elements, then, that absorb electricity and feed upon 
it as one of their vital constituents, undergo change and 
death. Therefore we see the foundation of the ephemeral 
existence of man. Like develops like ; hence the great sys- 
tem of morphology, which nature presents in her vast labor- 
atory, still holds fast to its claim upon the material elements, 
whether in the bosom of the ocean or in the body of man. 
Here, then, the mystery that accompanies the cold and chilly 
hand of death, in a measure, disappears. As w r e cannot be 
moved out of the position which nature has assigned us, save 
by the order of progression, indelibly fixed upon the condi- 
tion of things, it will be useful, perhaps, for us to examine 
closely, in an especial sense, for the legitimate abiding place of 
our material bodies. Nature plainly spreads before us an aerial 
ocean, composed of the atmosphere and its gases, and the elec- 
trical fluid, as our ephemex^al abiding place. This is the home 
of the body. In this grand ocean we live and move in con- 
nection with the elements therein, which are continually, with 
their undulating movements, beating up against every pore 
and nerve, like the water upon the fish. Those elements are 
above, below, and around us. Is not this as plain to the 
mind now, as that the oceanic department of the universe is 
the home of the fish ? Can we take their place and live, or 
can they take ours ] We now have the answer before us 
to the question, u What is the material world V as well 
as the natural reason of the destructible tendency of our 
bodies, with the third and fourth systems of the universe 
furnishing them a momentary abiding place. Every crea- 



28 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

ture, therefore, that lives this side of, and vitally absorbs 
the ether of Newton, the electricity of Franklin, and the 
electrical fluid of Sir James Murray, is, of necessity, com- 
pelled to undergo change and death. The mole being an 
inhabitant of the globe, absorbs his electrical vitality through 
the systems that stand above it ; the fishes, and other inhab- 
itants of the water, absorbing theii 'electrical vitality through 
the atmosphere ; and man, being an inhabitant of the atmos- 
phere, directly absorbs his electrical fluid by the agency of 
the nervous system. Each part of creation seems to be 
governed, physically, by those laws which obtain in the ele- 
ments where they are found naturally to exist, from the 
smallest and lowest of creation, that separates the particles 
of earth in its pathway, step by step, up to man. What 
kingdom or atmosphere does angel, archangel, cherubim, 
and seraphim inhabit? Do they exist? And if they do, is 
that existence upon nothing ? Are they not capable of ab- 
sorbing some kind of influence 1 Can they be sustained by 
the elements that we absorb ? If not, in the mind's eye we 
behold them as the positive inhabitants of the interior or 
spirit world, although unseen by mortal eyes, as long as na- 
ture claims us as her own. 

From the mechanical condition and connection of the dif- 
ferent systems of the universe, we can easily contemplate 
them in our midst, feeding upon and absorbing the vital 
elements which compose the spiritual world. This must be 
so, as this beautiful and never-ending doctrine of absorption 
cannot stop with the nervous system of man and the elec- 
tricity of the atmosphere. Were it not for the tangible part 
of our being, we are quite sure any knowledge respecting the 
mind and its dispositions would be impossible. When we 
behold every creature, in its make, appetite, outgoings, and 



MENTAL ALCHEMY 29 

incomings, adapted to its respective elements and depart- 
ments of the material world, so that they can absorb and 
live upon them, it cannot be mere speculation to speak of 
the progressive state of things, with reference to the higher 
and purer emanations from His almighty hand. The condi- 
tion of things, in this very interesting particular that we find 
here, did not happen by chance. Wisdom and design are 
seen throughout the special and general adaptation of means 
to ends. We should, therefore, be short-sighted and illiberal, 
indeed, to assert that there is no principle in man capable of 
absorbing other influences than electrical. The interior 
body, which now indirectly feeds upon the elements of the 
spiritual world, is unquestionably destined, when the chord 
between the nervous system and the spiritual system shall be 
broken, to absorb directly and live upon those wholesome in- 
fluences which now stand at the foundation of intellectual 
life. This must be so, as we have reason, both from nature 
and revelation, to prove the existence of beings beyond us, 
who were once the positive recipients of the great liquor 
amnii of nature, as we now are. Then excuse us for indulg- 
ing in that which nature seems unmistakably to present, and 
that is, we know that man has a natural organization or body, 
and that that natural organization or body recognizes the 
brain as its center. All the elements that compose the body 
and brain are destructible in their nature, upon the principles 
laid clown, because the elements and systems that they con- 
tinually absorb are destructible and changeable. They are 
also inert and motionless, b.ecause those which they absorb 
are inert and motionless. They are moved about from place 
to place by the power of the spiritual being within, of which 
they are but an imperfect daguerreotype. Joy springs up in 
the mind when nature presents such a volume of thought in 



80 MENTAL ALCHEMY 

relation to spiritual certainty. Look, then, at the spiritual 
system, as it plays its vital part through the agency of the 
nerves, in protecting, for a time, this finite castle from the 
millions of extraneous agents that are continually warring 
against it, and you have a demonstration not altogether of 
earth. 

This spiritual system, which thus speaks an unmistakable 
language, as regards its whereabouts, must, in the nature of 
things, have the mind for its center, as the body has the 
brain. The spiritual system and the mind are the only per- 
fect organization of man. 

Then it is not mere conjecture to assert, that the mind 
bears the same relation to the spiritual body that the brain 
does to the natural body, as every organization presupposes 
a center. It is not mere speculation to speak of the spiritual 
organization, as being indestructible and eternal in its nature, 
if it absorbs elements that are indestructible and eternal. If 
we see our bodies, in the stillness of the night, absorbing the 
elements around us, and from which they derive their vital 
support, and look at these as they are, changeable in their 
nature, we find them still in the possession of the same char- 
acteristics after being absorbed into the body, although they 
constitute that body. Then, if our spiritual bodies after 
death are actually released and removed from material ele- 
ments, they are indestructible and unchangeable, and exist 
in every way independent of them. Will it not necessarily 
follow, if the influences which they absorb ^re eternal and un- 
changeable, that bodies that are supported by those influences 
must correspond to their nature ? If you wish it, as it is in 
common usage, the body that w r e see is destructible and ma- 
terial ; and the one interior, that moves it at will — the one 
we do not see — is indestructible, and therefore immaterial, 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 31 



for the plain reasons laid clown. If you say that the spirit 
is without form, and a mere essence only, we acknowledge our 
inability to understand any thing about it. What office can 
a mere essence, without the attributes of a spiritual being in 
the full possession of organs and faculties, fill in the economy 
of human existence ? Did not the greatest of all philoso- 
phers, with his mind illuminated by a flame above the bright- 
ness of the sun, record it, not as a fact only, but as a truth, 
that " there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." 
Did he say it was a mere essence ? Has nature or revela- 
tion ever declared it as such ? Will men of mental power 
still contend for the primary virtue of the material elements 
by the hand of nature in the development of the body of man, 
and not admit a corresponding body as an emanation from the 
elements of the spiritual world 1 Does not the body of man 
present itself as a representative of the material w r orld, and 
as an emanation from it? This spiritual body, then, of which 
St. Paul speaks, must, in the nature of things, emanate from 
and represent the spiritual world. Is the material body 
filled with different systems and elements 1 If so, why not 
the spiritual body ? To say, then, it is without form, and an 
essence only, seems to contradict every word which nature 
has spoken in relation to that something which arms her with 
power. Why should we attach meaning to the natural body, 
and labor for centuries to understand its physical relations, 
and boldly proclaim that it is a physical organization, having 
the brain as its center, and speak of our internal body as an 
essence only ? Do we wish, by such deductions, to leave our 
recorded sanction, that it emanates from the material world 
by the mysterious distillation of nature 1 From what source 
could such deductions come ? In her vast domain of opera- 
tions, the least possible indication of this direction is not 



32 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

even hinted at. She claims no priority over our primary 
spirituality, and humbly bows at its footstool, supplying the 
various constituents for its natural covering. It would, there- 
fore, not only be gratuitous on our part, but an effect which, 
in her constitution, never has been presented, to place such 
a free signification anywhere in her great physical chamber. 
The spirit of man rises transcendently above a mere essence, 
the distillation of matter, or any such conclusion. It is a 
spiritual body, the perfect system of our being, and just as 
much an emanation from the ingredients which constitute, 
beautify, and adorn the interior or spiritual w T orld, as the nat- 
ural body is an emanation from the great mass of nature. 
Look at the morning sun, as he comes forth clad in his aque- 
ous splendor, and we have presented a reflection from those 
elements from which man derives his immortal spirit, and 
from w T hich it is supplied with life and being. Our spirits 
are now the indirect recipients of those elements thus re- 
flected. 

When we complete our mortal career, and pay the debt 
which we owe to nature ; when we experience those inde- 
scribable struggles of anguish and pain by which the cord 
that links the spiritual and nervous systems together is 
broken ; when its last spiritual fiber has sundered its affinity 
for the nervous, then, and not until then, do our spirits be- 
come the direct recipients, and absorb, under standingly and 
knowingly, the elements and influences of the spirit world, 
which are pure and indestructible. 



CHAPTER III. 

Man's Spiritual System further Discussed — The Subject of Communication between 
Man and the Spiritual World Considered, and its Natural Impossibility Presented — 
The Entrance of a Being into the Spiritual World analagous to the Introduction of a 
Human Being into this Life. 

In our further contemplations upon this interesting sub- 
ject, it will be well to remember the voltaic connection of the 
different systems of the universe, and particularly those that 
compose the material world : as they, by the laws of their na- 
ture, force out from themselves bodies with forms and organs 
clothed upon with mortality. Then we shall not so readily 
deny the systems and elements of the interior world, the cor- 
responding primary authority in the development of the liv- 
ing spirit. 

If we cannot have any possible idea, save by reflection, of 
the nature of the different systems and elements which com- 
pose the interior world, the want of that knowledge here can- 
not, in the least degree, affect its primary development of the 
spirit. Have we a spirit ] If we have, does it not repre- 
sent something ? Have we a body ? If we have, does it not 
represent something ? Is not that something in relation to 
the body the material world ? Why may not that something, 
in a spiritual sense, be this spiritual world ? Is it unreason- 
able to suppose, therefore, that, by a power beyond nature, 
acting correspondingly with her, bodies, with forms and or- 
gans, should be developed in their nature immortal, and, 



34 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



by the power of death, be prepared to become the positive 
subjects and recipients of the elements and influences which 
thus claim them as their own ? Do Ave not here behold the 
beauties of nature ? Do we not absorb and feed upon her 
bounties, and with pleasure gaze upon her landscapes, and 
gather the choicest flowers from feer fields, and drink in with 
delight the influences of her shady groves 1 Shall not this 
something which mysteriously presides over the body, arm- 
ing it with power to absorb those influences which nature so 
bountifully bestows, ultimately absorb, feel, and enjoy those 
from which it came ? Look at the works of nature ; recol- 
lect that there was a time in our existence when w T e were not 
even the positive recipients of the atmosphere as we now are ; 
but we were its recipients, not directly, but indirectly. Our 
vitality from the atmosphere, then, was second-handed vital- 
ity, but exactly adapted to our more infantile nature and 
being. Have we not, then, an example before us, that seems 
to present a world of progressive thought as to what kind of 
recipients we are now of those h£gh spiritual influences? 
Our spiritual vitality, therefore, is obliged to be, while it is in 
connection with the bod}^, philosophically speaking, second- 
handed, unless there be supernatural agency. But it is ex- 
actly adapted to the nature of our spiritual being, while it 
supports the body which is within the great womb of our 
mother nature. 

How it can be contended that any spirit, while bowing in 
obedience to the gravitating laws of nature and of the bod} r , 
without divine agency, can 3 for a time even, break" this wall 
between spirits negative and spirits positive, is to us, indeed, 
marvelous in the extreme — the gate that leads from one state 
to the other being that of death, and the entrance to those 
influences of a new condition of life — that of the resurrection. 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 35 

To contend, then, that our spirits can, while in connection 
with the body, understandingly absorb the influences directly 
of the spirit world, and be enabled to converse with those 
spirits that once had being among us, would be the strangest 
hallucination that has ever been tumbled into the great cate- 
gory of thought. The imaginative faculty of man, moved 
on by that of marvelousness, may induce the mind to depart, 
for a short time, upon the noncommercial ocean of conjec- 
ture, and w T hen there, to think that it may rise transcend- 
ency above its nature, and be enabled to converse intelligibly 
even with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The information thus 
received from those noble and daring spirits may seem to 
impart a new stimulus to those two faculties that have be- 
come morbid, creating a strong belief, that spirits more ac- 
commodating, as those of Zachary Taylor, Lorenzo Dow, 
and others, would come at their calling, and entangle 
themselves again with matter, by knocks, sounds, tipping 
and moving tables, and giving instructions how we should 
conduct ourselves, and w T hat course we should pursue in all 
matters requiring judgment and discretion, as positive evi- 
dence of their entanglement. The medium, therefore, is just 
as well satisfied that he can obtain additional power from the 
co-operating influence of those spirits, in the production of 
physical and mental results, as he is of his own existence. 
This is not the first time that the morbid secretions of these 
faculties of the brain have enticed the mind away from its 
natural channel of thought and power. We are not saying 
that those who believe in spiritual communications have not 
seen and felt enough to convince them of their possibility. 
We admit, that gentlemen, as honest as men can be, truly 
believe and participate in these things. The mind of man 
will, of necessity, be compelled to give way to the morbid 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



secretions of these two faculties until his involuntary cham- 
ber is better understood. Now, the physical phenomena ema- 
nating from this source do not seem to be looked at in their 
proper light ; and this being the case, the mental dispensa- 
tions are still more in the dark. The great characteristics 
of these properties of the mind have shown themselves in all 
ages w T ith a disposition to err in their celestial soarings, and 
it is neither strange, nor without cause, that the mind, labor- 
ing under the influence of their specific secretions, should 
believe that it could become, even now, the positive recipient 
of angelic care. 

Departed spirits have then, according to the belief of 
many, selected men of a certain reactive condition of the 
nervous system, for the purpose of conveying additional in- 
tellectual and divine intelligence to the world. Men believe 
this, and hundreds are now acting under the influence of 
these impressions. Without asking the question, in relation 
to the use and advantage of such intelligence, would it not 
be ill adapted to our present being and mental power ? Has 
that which has already been given by those set apart in the 
great purpose of all things, been properly digested and un- 
derstood? When it is, have we not every reason to believe 
that it will run this cup over with unutterable pleasure and 
delight ? Nature, reason, and every thing else, says to the 
reflecting mind, and that, too, for its own good, digest well 
the food you already have, which is exactly adapted to the 
nature of your stomach and being, as danger may result 
from swallowing more, particularly if it be of a different na- 
ture, requiring, as all must perceive, supernatural reaction, 
on the part of its recipient, to digest it. We acknowledge 
the mind to be of a progressive nature. We look upon it as 
being in the possession of powers capable of reflecting back 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 37 

to the time when the morning sun first rose in his primeval 
splendor, and returning again, simply by an effort of the will, 
to its earthly bosom. We look upon it as being in posses- 
sion of a reactive influence, which enables it indirectly to 
absorb, in its reflections, the pleasure and delight of angelic 
existence. All this and more do we admit ; but as there is 
an adaptation of means to ends, in the mental as well as 
physical dispositions of all creatures, reason cries aloud, 
Are we in our more infantile life and condition prepared as 
subjects for the departments of nature, as we now are? 
Has the periphery undergone that physiological and chem- 
ical change which takes place after birth to protect the 
body from the storms and tempests of winter that take 
place in the atmospheric and gaseous departments'? The 
question is, to be plain on this subject, can the infant, 
before its birth, directly absorb the elements of nature as 
we do, and receive intelligence from us who are in a differ- 
ent atmosphere 1 This would be a miracle, and would re- 
quire divine agency to accomplish it. As such, we say, it 
would require the same agency for our spirits to converse 
with introsuscepted spirits. However intelligent the mind 
of man may be, it still, in the nature of things, compares 
with the intelligence of the spirits in another world, as the 
infantile germ in the mother's womb compares with those 
minds that are intelligibly absorbing the most mysterious 
works of nature. The great difference between the two 
worlds justifies this conclusion. The process of death is, 
therefore, but the manner in which the spirit of man makes 
an exchange of worlds. The dissatisfaction of the spirit 
of man, manifested while here, under any and all circum- 
stances, however prosperous and happy nature may seem to 
make it, proves that it longs for this heritage of the resur- 

4 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



rection. The innate anxiety of man, therefore, demands it, 
and the many premature efforts which it oft-times makes to 
disconnect itself from the body which is in the material 
world, are but so many evidences that it was created for a 
higher destiny than that of earth. The progression of our 
being upward, then, as plainly seen from the commencement 
of infancy, is but to prepare us for that of mature manhood, 
and that of mature manhood, by the power of death and the 
resurrection, will deliver us, as beings capable of absorbing 
the spiritual influences of the interior world. Then the 
spirit is unquestionably a higher being than it was before. 
It has thus, in the order of things, emerged from one state 
of existence into another. The question then arises, can 
the spirit return back, in any sense, to our world, and par- 
ticipate in our intellectual associations, without a special 
commission from the God who planned and created the order 
and harmony of His universe? If the speculations of those 
who believe in spiritual communications be true, these spirits 
possess the power, and are, in a measure, at least, compelled 
to obey the emotions of a medium, and respond to his inquir- 
ies, laying plainly before him what our departed friends are 
doing. We ask, with the kindest feelings toward those who 
are now positively consuming their vitality in this direction, 
can this be so? If it cannot, every time such an impression 
is absorbed, it presupposes an extraneous expenditure of vi- 
tality which the mind and the body nepd for the legitimate 
support of its present existence. Those who believe and 
absorb such impressions, to such an extent as to cause their 
actions to correspond to their nature, may follow such freaks 
of the imagination with pleasure and apparent coolness, but 
that does not prove that this communication is opened up. 
How far it may, for a time, lead its followers by its extra- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



neous attractions is, indeed, fearful to contemplate in rela- 
tion to the welfare of some — fearful, because an expenditure 
of vitality in this direction being extraneous, must, of neces- 
sity, rob man of the vital agent which is needed for the sup- 
port of his physical existence. 

From such an expenditure ofttimes comes an unbalanced 
condition of the mind and the body, which nothing but death 
can level. We hope, therefore, the reader will first exam- 
ine the extent of the demonstrable power of the involuntary 
chamber of his being, in its physical as well as mental dis- 
pensations ; then connect it with the various conditions of 
the nervous system, which arms it with power, and inspect, 
with an impartial eye, the wonderful phenomena emanating 
therefrom, before he consents to have his intellect encum- 
bered with such impressions. Will he not, in certain con- 
ditions of the mind and the nervous system, realize the 
possibility of the involuntary stirrings beyond consciousness, 
conveying intelligence to others? 

Examine the power of the mind in this condition to receive 
those impressions independent of consciousness, and recog- 
nize the peculiar quality of the mind, which is conditionally 
to act and react upon its nervous system, and see if from 
these internal sources a positive effect cannot be produced 
upon the auditory nerve, occasioning the same disturbance 
that atmospheric undulations do, by which the mind hears. 
Will the reader be so kind as to examine still further, and 
see if by the internal action of the mind upon the optic nerve 
the same disturbance may not take place, under certain con- 
ditions, by which the mind can see through the eye ; and 
examine still further to satisfy himself in relation to this 
remarkable property of mind, to see if it cannot, even in a 
physical sense, produce the same disturbance in the nervous 



4C MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



system that the action of the galvanic battery will produce. 
If he does, we are more than sure that he will be satisfied, 
in the first instance, of the truth of what he has heard, seen, 
and felt ; and, secondly, that these effects are not of that 
spiritual nature that they are believed to be by many. 
Minds more mature than ours, we are aware, cling to the 
new doctrine of spiritual manifestations, independently of the 
virtue of what we have said. We drop these few hints, 
therefore, not for the purpose of disputing with those who 
are so eagerly pursuing this path of investigation, nor to 
charge any one with deception ; but we ask in all kindness, 
ought we not to hearken to the powers that are here given us, 
and trace them out correctly, before we charge departed 
spirits with results which have taken place, in many in- 
stances, by the involuntary action of the mind independently 
of consciousness ? 

We have put ourselves to much trouble for the purpose of 
investigating these phenomena, but have as yet never seen or 
heard the least demonstration that could not be legitimately 
referred to the source we have named. We do not say that 
others have not ; this much, however, we know full well, we have 
not. We have anxiously asked mediums, said to possess ex- 
traordinary power, to produce for us the most simple results, 
and we then would believe. The experiments that we asked 
to be given were of a nature that came not within the condi- 
tion of the nervous system and mind to which we have re- 
ferred. We have been told by mediums, from the authority 
of some mysterious spirit, which caused them to write inde- 
pendently of the will and consciousness, that if we would take 
the pen, they would also take possession of our nervous sys- 
tem, and write a communication. We did so with all hon- 
esty of purpose, and felt no impulse corresponding with the 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 41 

nature of such an impression. Being perfectly passive, the 
pen moved not, and, therefore, from this source we failed to 
get any experiment of writing communications. We have 
seen and know many persons as far removed from deception 
as mortality can be, who were not only believers, but were 
active mediums in the production of what is supposed to be 
this condition of things. During their demonstrations, inva- 
riably the greatest wonderment was expressed in the counte- 
nances of those present. 

Now, then, we hope that this will not be considered as 
traveling out of our way, or digressing from the path of our 
subject, as these phenomena have to do with mind. It is the 
mind or spirit that w r e have been asking nature, in a general 
sense, in her presignification to present. It has been written 
by the pen of inspiration^ that there is — not will be — a spirit- 
ual body. If our deductions are not imaginary, nature, as 
well as revelation, speaks too plainly in relation to the where- 
abouts of the spirit, while in connection with the body, to be 
misunderstood. She sets at rest this indirect, inductive re- 
lation of the mind or spirit, while within her domain, and 
feeding upon her bounties, as regards positive spiritual influ- 
ences outside of divine agency. 

It will be perceived, according to the principles laid down, 
that by the action and reaction of the mind, it can apparently 
absorb the impression of, and realize the immediate presence 
of departed spirits, converse with them, as well as< hear sounds 
and voices as clear and distinct as in natural life. Any cir- 
cumstance, therefore, which may occur so a3 to produce a 
similar condition of the mind, may bring about this state of 
things ; and while in this condition, revelations may be had 
that will startle the subject from the sole of the foot to the 
crown of the head. The mind that absorbs such impressions 



42 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

should remember that they are the works of his own interior 
creation, and that, having once absorbed them, he may take 
his pen in hand and give the most glowing description of what 
he has seen and heard. This is believed by him with as 
much earnestness as he believes in the truth of the absorption 
of any impression that ever came from a mortal being. We 
could mention many instances of this kind that occurred long 
before the new doctrine of spiritual revelations, creating im- 
pressions of the most sublime and aerial nature, which, if re- 
corded, would fill volumes. 

If it be contended that the mind in this condition, in a 
manner, at least, disconnects itself from materiality, and in 
consequence of that disconnection is permitted to approach 
nearer to the spirit world, and consequently nearer to its in- 
habitants. I still ask, where is the evidence ? These con- 
templations are therefore left on record for the honest pur- 
pose, not of diverting the mind of any man from the true path 
of spiritual investigation, but for the purpose of begging him 
to weigh well the extraordinary power of his own mind when 
it bears a certain relation to the nervous system, in making 
creations apparently not of earth. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Natural and Spiritual World— Their different Systems, Stratas, and Elements-. 
They are both Created — They are not God — The Spiritual and Material Nature of Man 
Considered — Distinction between Mind and Intellect — Motion the Result of the Spirit 
— The Law of Equilibrium does not hold with Mind as with Matter. 

As there are, and have been, so many speculations put 
forth to the world as regards that which is natural and that 
which is spiritual, we will be as plain as possible in our de- 
ductions, that we may not be misunderstood. The subject, 
then, in this place, demands a more special consideration. 
Some might think, from merely a glance at our previous re- 
marks, that they would lead to the conclusion that the nat- 
ural and spiritual world are God. If they, however, will ex- 
amine more closely, they will find them placed as the result 
of His creating fiat. We may extend this subject, perhaps, 
further than many, because we believe, from the manifesta- 
tions of those things which are seen, that it was as possible 
for Him, in the first place, to create a spiritual world which 
should forever remain unseen by mortal eyes, as it was in the 
last place for Him to create a material world which should in 
its nature be visible — the one filled with systems and stratas, 
pure and . unchangeable ; the other filled with systems and 
stratas impure, and therefore subject to change. 

In this place nature even seems to say, why not? as a 
word from Him to the one would render it immortal, and to 
the other, mortal. 



44 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



" Thou above, apart, beyond, 
Oh ! tell us, mighty mind, 
Where art thou r" 

Common usage lias given us the words material and im- 
material. Nature herself gives us their true meaning. But 
if the immortal part of man simply means an essence result- 
ing from material distillation, the view we have taken is sadly 
erroneous. If, however, it means, in the condition of things, 
a spirit created and emanating from a world filled with sys- 
tems and stratas indestructible and of surpassing beauty, its 
existence is plain, and the definition of spirit imparts an eter- 
nity of thought. Are we not informed that God created all 
things ? If so, is the spiritual world a thing ? If it be, both 
nature and revelation seal this point, else, He is not the cre- 
ator of all things, and therefore something has existed also 
from the beginning which was uncreated. View this part of 
the subject carefully, and ask the question, how is it possible 
to imagine an uncreated something, with all the attributes of 
self-existence acknowledging any power beyond itself? We 
venture the assertion, that it is impossible. Therefore we think 
that we have the authority of nature for saying that this interior 
world, is a world created ; and its millions on millions of spirits 
are justly and truly so many emanations from the elements 
and stratas which compose it. He who said, " Let there be 
light, and there was light," spoke in so many words to the 
interior world, let there be spirit, and there was spirit. It 
is admitted, that the countless millions of beings who are the 
subjects of the material world, are by nature the creations of 
His hand. We cannot, therefore, believe that the material 
and spiritual world are God, as some have conjectured, for 
they appear in the operations above and below us, as subjects 
of a higher power. They are the universe, and not, there- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 45 

fore, God. The one contains systems and elements for the 
development of our spiritual individuality ; and the other, 
systems and elements, as we know, for the development of 
our physical individuality. Now, then, as our spirits pos- 
sess the power to reason and to think, do you say that the 
mass of the ingredients of the spiritual world, from which 
our spirits are individualized, think and reason as a mass 1 
We certainly mean to convey no such idea. We wish to be 
understood as speaking of this matter from analogy, when we 
say that it is just as much the spiritual nature of that world 
and its ingredients to impart those faculties to its special 
emanations, as it is the nature of the material world and its 
ingredients to produce muscles and bones for our mortal 
bodies. Do we see bone and muscle as bone and muscle in 
the material mass? Certainly not. Still, no man in his 
senses will deny the fact that the bones and muscles of all 
men, by some mysterious process, come from that mass. 
Here, then, the philosopher may reason upon it, and examine 
it as much as he pleases, and dispute our premises, if he 
likes, still the fact is clear, that the same elements that enter 
into the composition of the clods of the valley, do produce the 
bones and muscles of men. Why may not, then, a spiritual in- 
dividualization, representing the elements and systems of the 
interior world, possess the faculty of thinking and feeling, as 
well as the body possess bone and muscle ? It would seem that 
these are reasonable deductions, and they obtain, in this par- 
ticular, beyond all controversy ; they are plain, and easy to be 
understood. Surely, then, if the natural world is but an im- 
pression of the interior world, the question settles itself. It 
does not present die spiritual world in a still more incompre- 
hensible light. We stare not at the power of nature in the 
development of our physical organization or body, with the 



46 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

brain as its center. If we can see this body, and many of 
the elements that compose it, and know that those of this 
world lie at their foundation, why is it not equally philo- 
sophic and reasonable to say that the created mass of the 
spiritual world lies at the foundation of our spiritual organ- 
ization or body, which has the mind as its center ? 

Turn it and speculate as we may, man is still a compound 
of a natural and spiritual organization, composed of systems 
playing mysteriously into each other, and so mechanically 
fitted together, as apparently to make but one body ; the in- 
terior of which has the mind for its center, and to which, we 
have every reason to believe, it bears the same relation as 
the brain does to the external organization. Hence the spirit 
of man is just as much in his hand, his spine, and his foot, 
as it is in his brain. The brain is the great point of its 
physical and mental response. Impressions of this world 
are received there ; impressions to this world are given out 
there. But this will not warrant us, from the relation of 
things, to torture nature, by speaking a language she never 
spoke ; that is, that the spirit of man is in the brain only. 
How would we account for, or in the least degree understand, 
the reason why some men feel, apparently, in a foot or hand 
for ten or twenty years after it has been amputated, by a 
contrary hypothesis 1 When we bruise, or otherwise injure 
any part of the body, as, for instance, the hand, the spiritual 
system, a part of which is in it, though in its nature removed 
from destructibility and the surgeon's knife, is of a nature 
to feel, and the conclusion is forcible, that even when the hand 
is amputated the spirit is not touched, and still remains. 

If this be the hypothesis of nature, is it strange that, con- 
ditionally, the mind or spirit should manifest the same feel- 
ing as before? None will contend that it is the hand we see 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 47 

which feels ; the feeling, therefore, must be in the invisible 
hand which remains, because the hand of our immortal sys- 
tem is as much in the hand we see as in the brain. There- 
fore, when the hand we see is amputated by the surgeon's 
knife, this immortal hand remains, and conditionally feels, as 
it did before, the same identical distress and pain. 

This phenomenon, which has been looked upon as a physi- 
cal one, seems now to go home to its proper origin, and de- 
monstrates the indestructible character of spirit which all 
may understand. The brain hypothesis falls far short of a 
satisfactory explanation on this subject. Its followers, in 
conversing on this phenomenon, which has occasionally occur- 
red in the practice of physicians, refer to the secretions of 
the imagination for its solution. That faculty, then, is asked 
for an explanation of this, the deepest psychological phenom- 
enon, and before a reply is received, the scientific nail this 
charge to its door, in accordance with a kind of physiological 
usage and convenience, by which they explain some of the 
more difficult phenomena of nature. Look, then, at a man 
who has had a hand or a foot amputated ten or twenty years 
ago, and hear him complain distressingly of the same pains 
and aches that existed before it was amputated, and you have 
an effect, which seems to attract to itself a world of thought. 
It is one of those sentences penned in the great book of na- 
ture, to convince man of the existence of the spirit which we 
have been considering. He who hearkens not to the lesson 
of a spirit thus speaking, however humble, passes by the 
brightest star in nature's vast domain, that points uner- 
ringly to the immortality of man. About this, at present, 
we say no more, and pass on to prominent difficulties, in a 
special sense, which we propose to discuss in relation to 
mind. First, some philosophers believe that this mind or 



48 MENTAL ALCHEMY 

spirit that we have labored so hard to give spiritual person- 
ality, as the body has natural personality, is nothing more 
than the result of impressions upon the brain ; secondly, 
that the intellect of man is, indeed and in truth, his mind ; 
and, thirdly, that the five senses in union may constitute 
this something susceptible of intellectual progression. These 
positions are worthy of consideration, as many adhere to 
them and advocate them with eloquence and power. Our 
objections to them are founded upon the practical demonstra- 
tions of the nature of man. We have a source in the man- 
ifestations of the mind in its alchemistic developments, to 
prove that these are only imaginary hypotheses. Subject 
them to the scrutiny of the science of mental alchemy, and 
their imaginative existence at once appears. To prove their 
unsoundness we have but to take persons in a natural state, 
and at once take away all impressions that their minds have 
absorbed, from the cradle up. If this can be done, they cer- 
tainly stand dispossessed of those impressions and of intel- 
lect, causing all around them, with which they were familiar, 
even to the impression of a father or a mother, for the time, 
to be beyond their intellectual reaction. If these impres- 
sions are the individual's mind, it is in this instance certainly 
gone. Place before him a book with which he is familiar, 
call upon him to repeat a school-boy speech, and, although 
he may understand, by your permission, what you say, still, 
in relation to the matters of which you speak, he knows 
nothing. The impossibility of giving his opinion in relation 
to any subject is peculiarly marked in his very condition. 

Now, then, I repeat, if the intellect is his mind, it is in this 
instance certainly gone. His brain is stripped of its intel- 
lectual robe, but his blood circulates as before. A something 
remains which exerts r physical force of from fifty to two 



MENTAL ALCHEMY 49 

hundred thousand pounds; that is, the positive and negative 
motion of from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds of blood 
throughout the arterial and venous system once in every three 
or four minutes. 

Now, what is that something which remains and still pre- 
sents to us, in the great economy of human existence, one of 
its most sublime operations ? It cannot be the brain and the 
heart, for they are matter, and matter cannot move itself. 
Motion is no property of matter. Matter only moves by the 
influence of some other power separate and apart from itself. 
As something remains, and presents us with motion, pro- 
ducing such an extraordinary amount of physical force, the 
conclusion is positive that it is not matter. What, then, can 
it be but the living spirit, still producing its involuntary nervo- 
vital discharges to the heart, contracting its muscles now as 
it contracted them before it received an intellectual impression 
from the material world 1 

I press this question, and beg particular attention to this 
state of things. Here stands a man who is intellectually and 
understandingly conversant with different languages, as well 
as capable of receiving impressions, and, by the authority of 
the nervous system, which caused those impressions to consti- 
tute his intellect, we find by experiment that his intelligence, 
and even his power to receive impressions is, for the time, set 
aside. If those impressions were, in a vital sense, his mind, 
the effects that are now produced would, in their very nature, 
cause it to cease its material existence. But, on the contra- 
ry, we find a hearty co-operation between the brain, the 
heart, and the circulating system, with a strong, healthy pul- 
sation, and a soft, flexible feel of the skin. The mind still 
remains, as we now see, clad with all its physical power of 
life and being. The five senses, in their turn, are also — ag 

5 



50 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

you may novf perceive by experiment — alchemistically nega- 
tived, and we have the same living and immortal monarch, 
showing his power as before, in the circulation of the blood. 
While the subject is thus disarmed of his senses, and com- 
pletely stripped of his intellectuality, the blood still contin- 
ues to flow through the living channels of the body, whisper- 
ing the intelligence of the presence of his spirit, separate and 
apart from intellectual impression, or the union of the five 
senses. What can be more conclusive? If these experi- 
ments were performed on a frog, a cat, or a dog, the conclu- 
sion would not be as forcible ; but here is a being who can 
testify, with thousands of others, the condition of things as 
regards this matter, by which we may more understanding^ 
overlook the true operation and relation of mind to matter, as 
well as the manner in which impressions are absorbed. Are 
we not authorized, from these experiments — as they involve 
the highest reactions of a human being — to say that man has 
a something which is not the result of impressions, which is 
not the union of the senses, nor any distillation of matter by 
the great crucible of nature ? That something is spirit, and 
it is just as much adapted to the absorption of impressions as 
the body is to the absorption of the different elements of na- 
ture. If these conclusions are imaginary, an awful chasm 
is here presented, which can be found nowhere else in the 
absolute condition of things — which compels like to beget 
like. 

The natural world begets our natural body, and the spirit- 
ual world our spiritual body. We see the one, and through 
that, from its nature, by impressions, reach the other ; as 
when we step upon the foot, the pressure produces a mechan- 
ical disturbance of a fine fluid that circulates within the body 
pf the nervous system, from the brain and spine to the foot* 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. &i 



That disturbance occasions a succession of waves in the 
nervous system to pass from the point involved to the brain. 
This is simply action, a property which belongs to matter, 
when disturbed. These waves are purely mechanical ; but 
they reach the brain, and that being which looks out from 
behind the sparklings of the eye. Then the mind reacts 
upon the same system through the brain and spine, dispatch- 
ing a reversed succession of waves from the center of the 
physical organization to the point involved. Without this 
returning succession of waves, or disturbances of the parti- 
cles of the nervous system, there is no response, no feeling, 
no reaction. These bring with them an extra quantity of 
blood, and a chemical condition, therefore, of the parts in- 
volved takes place. Hence they may properly be termed the 
chemical succession Gf waves or disturbances of the nervous 
system. They are the effects of a sensible response by which 
distention of the blood-vessels takes place, causing irritation, 
pain, and inflammation proportioned to the extent of the re- 
action or response, and the peculiar texture of the physical 
and mental organization involved, presenting plainly a new 
and interesting volume in physiology. 

Is the question still asked, Where is this something that 
responds with such force and power % We answer, that it is 
just beyond and interior to the vital circulation of the nerv- 
ous system. A piece of bread is taken into the mouth and 
conveyed to the stomach. There it stops for the present ; 
still we do not see it. Now, then, suppose the question be 
asked, Where is this stomach? Is it not plain that it is 
where the bread stops, and does it not, by its presence, agi- 
tate the stomach, and in that agitation produce a disturbance 
of the muscular wall, and does not a disturbance of its vital 
particles, in consequence of its nervo-vital connection with 



52 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

the brain, occasion a succession of waves to pass mechanic- 
ally to it, before the transverse and longitudinal contraction 
and relaxation of that organ can take place ? This is mere 
mechanical action, thus produced from the stomach to the 
brain ; and the chemical action from the brain to the stomach 
must, in the nature of things, occasion the churning process 
of the different stomachic movements in digestion. Why not 
say that a succession of disturbances takes place from the 
stomach to che brain within the nervous system, when we are 
told that the food that we take into the mouth enters the 
stomach through its cardiac orifice by a wave-like movement? 
This wave-like motion, certainly claims our attention in all v 
the great variety of physical and mental phenomena. Sup- 
pose the question still be asked, Where is the stomach ? 
We reply, that the answer is had in looking at the bread 
where it is now making impressions, and positively calling 
forth the natural secretions of the stomach upon the prin- 
ciples laid down to produce the chemical change of the par- 
ticles of which the bread is composed. The most simple 
cannot fail to see naturally what we mean here. The chem- 
ical power of the stomach presupposes the presence of the 
gastric juice. All organs have their peculiar secretive na- 
ture as much as it is the nature of the peach tree to produce 
peaches, and the apple tree to produce apples, although they 
may both be influenced by and absorb the same vital stim- 
ulus. It is the nature of this organ to secrete the gastric 
juice, and it is the nature of the gastric juice, when secreted, 
to produce a chemical change in the food, and in this chem- 
ical change we see its power. Now, then, what objection is 
there to the hypothesis that the spirit of man is just beyond 
this nervous fluid, which has the nervous system, with its 
great variety of ramified threads as its channel of influenr 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



tial circulation. The brain and spine seem to be the vital 
radiating points of this fluid to the circumference of the 
castle. They seem to be the points of reaction of the spirit. 
Immediately upon a disturbance of the fine particles of this 
system, we can perceive from analogy a succession of waves 
going to the center, imparting pleasure or pain to the being 
within as the case may be, and returning with a new reactive 
succession of disturbances for the purpose of expelling the 
enemy that may have taken possession of its castle. This 
being the process also by which it brings blood-vessel to blood- 
vessel, and nerve to nerve, if they have been severed. 

We see, then, the official agency of electricity between mind 
and matter in the decomposition and recomposition which 
*akes place in the body of man, as well as the physical op- 
erations of the universe. 

Now, then, if the question be also asked, Where is this 
mind or spirit? the operations of the physical man reply, 
that it is where these undulations are thus making impres- 
sions. These undulations of the nervous system are thus 
making impressions, beating up upon it, like the waves of 
the atmosphere upon our bodies, calling forth its inherent re- 
active power, in the fluid of the nervous system. In other 
words, to be more plain, it is just beyond the vital fluid, or 
just beyond the lightning's Hash, which circulates within the 
pith of the nervous system, and interior to it ; as when we 
say the respiratory system i-s just beyond the circulating 
system in rarefaction, purity, and power, and interior to it. 

We are aware that we are here handling a matter which 
appears to be not altogether of earth, and feel our entire in- 
ability to trace understandingly the mechanical movements 
of nature in co-operation with the chemical movements of m 
the mind as here presented. To contemplate the composi- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY 



tion and the peculiar texture of this internal body can only be 
done by analogy. Its texture and composition, with its pe- 
culiar elements, are not here given to man to present, as he 
can those of its castle. But by the power of analogy he can 
see them too plainly, it would seem, to be misunderstood. 
Nature calls this power of the mind into play, in the under- 
standing, even, of electricity, which escapes mechanical vi- 
sion and inspection. We only know its existence from its 
effects, as no chemist can analyze it. Even if the atmos- 
phere be pumped out of a vessel, this does not empty the 
vessel of all its contents. Suppose we take a vessel filled 
with water, and pour out the water. In domestic usage, I 
grant, that the vessel is empty. But this is not so in a 
chemical sense, as it is still filled with atmosphere and the 
gases. Now let the atmosphere and gases be pumped out ; 
in both domestic and chemical usage the vessel is empty, but 
it is nevertheless clear, that this fine, elastic, electrical fluid 
remains, and will not leave its throne for all the power and 
genius of philosophy combined. There is a something, then, 
which remains, and it will be understood and admitted by 
all classes of philosophers that the vessel is still filled — not 
with water, as the domestic would reply ; not with atmos- 
phere or the gases, as the chemist would reply— but with 
electricity. A vacuum, therefore, in nature, is impossible. 
This ether of Newton, electricity of Franklin, and electrical 
fluid of Sir James Murray, which remains, is not of a na- 
ture to succumb to the wisdom of man, as the atmosphere 
and gases do in this particular. 

Oh ! nature, why dost thou thus abhor a vacuum ? 

This electrical fluid, with its positive and negative influ- 
ences existing everywhere and in every thing, in a material 
sense, is what we frequently call the nervous system of the 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 55 

world. This system has the sun as its center — yea, nature 
presents the electrical fluid as an emanation from the sun, 
which is the material center of inductive vitality from the 
spirit world. 

In relation to what has already been said, we are fully 
sensible that many will, without further consideration, ven- 
ture a negative verdict. To those we would very respectfully 
say, we have not presented any hypothesis of our own ; and if 
proper attention be paid to the operations of nature in rela- 
tion to one point, we are satisfied that they will begin to see 
with us ; and that is, to look for a something which has the 
property of special motion. Has any thing in the terrestrial 
world this property ? Certainly not ; for gross matter is ad- 
mitted to be inert and motionless ; that is, it has no inherent 
power by which it can stimulate itself to move from the place 
where it may be put. Upon an inspection of the oceanic de* 
partment, although it is not so gross, the same characteristic, 
inertia, is presented. If we turn to the third system, or to 
the atmospheric and gaseous department, which is much more 
rarefied and much finer than the other departments we have 
named, have they this inherent power? Approach, then, 
the fourth system, or department, the electrical, in which 
the God of nature presents His creative and destructive fiat„ 
Behold in the properties accompanying that fluid, if possible, 
independently of the law of equilibrium, the inherent power 
of self- stimulation. Then be pleased to stop here, and care- 
fully notice nature's own operations, and gather wisdom from 
the angry clouds. If two clouds come together, in different 
electrical conditions, as they approach each other the great- 
est possible stir and confusion in the heavens are unques- 
tionably presented by the action of this fluid. But if they 
are in the same electrical condition, this property is not man- 



56 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

ifested. When this law of equilibrium — which is undoubted- 
ly the law of matter ruling and obtaining in every department 
of nature — brings about an equalization of the electric fluid 
between the two clouds, that which before was wrapped in 
angry confusion is now regular and harmonious, and nature 
is again at rest. Does this express any thing more than the 
general motion of all matter, and the action of the law of 
equilibrium which presides over it 1 If it does not, then, in 
the nature of all operations, it cannot be placed in the same 
category of things with a thing, that possesses the power to 
stimulate its own bulk, and to move itself from the place 
where it was put. 

Now, then, we say that this property of specific motion it 
a property that belongs to the spiritual world, beyond the 
electrical ; and all the individual emanations from that world 
inherit it of necessity, as much as the body inherits bone and 
muscle from its parent earth. 

As we are speaking now about man alone, we are author- 
ized to venture the assertion, that he has a something that 
does not come from nature. If this were not so, his innate, 
reactive, mental stamina, which are a property of mind, and 
not of electricity, would be governed by the same law of 
equilibrium. Look at the following, and see if we are not 
correct. Suppose a Sir David Brewster were to remain for a 
short time in a room with or near an idiot. His innate, re- 
active stamina being positive, and that of the other, in the 
nature of things, being negative, would of necessity decrease, 
and the idiot's increase, until there was an equality of re- 
action and capability of the reception of intelligence pro- 
duced between the two. We are authorized to make this 
remark, and to present this example, as this law has no re- 
spect for persons nor favorites among the materials over 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 67 

which it positively reigns. Is it not, then, clear ? If it held 
dominion over the innate strength and power of mind, as it 
does over matter, it would be an impossibility, in any condi- 
tion of things, for one human being long to possess greater 
innate, reactive stamina than another ; and men, therefore, 
who had greater mental reaction than others, would not be 
found willing to be near those of inferior power. They would 
leave an idiot for a mental cause, as they would a lion in the 
lonely forest, for a physical cause. For is it not apparent, 
that if they approached each other, as two clouds do, a men- 
tal discharge from the one positive would take place to the 
one negative, setting the electricity between them on fire, as 
the electricity does the atmosphere, until an equilibrium is 
produced ? 

Now, I ask any man, if the opposite doctrine were true, 
would there not be the greatest confusion in the minds of 
both until an equality took place ? Is not such the charac- 
teristic action of the law governing electricity, atmosphere, 
and water ? How, then, does this law exercise any influence 
over mind while in connection with the body, save that of 
the negative ? If this influence were positive, the results to 
which we have referred would take place w 7 ith the same pre- 
cision that they do in the case of matter. The experience, 
however, of all human beings proves our position true, as 
we will perceive if we notice the germs as they are budding 
forth, even in two children of the same parents. They may 
sleep together, play together, eat together, school together, 
and go to the same church together. Here, then, these im- 
mortal spiritual germs are subjected to the same impressions 
for the purpose of their advancement, and yet a difference is 
soon noticed in many particulars in regard to their innate 
power of mental reaction. This could not be so if the law 



58 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

of equilibrium positively presided over their minds. Here 
we Lave an example, as all must see, where it would have 
the best opportunities for displaying itself in producing its 
only end and aim. But we see the peculiar innate mental 
electro-reaction of the two still remains, with a difference, 
showing itself through life. Does not this law carefully over- 
look the electro-vital system, and is it not ever watchful of 
two persons asleep side by side, to lose no time, if the one 
has more of the electric and vital principle than the other, 
to take from that one for the support of the other 1 Will it 
stop before an equilibrium is had, regardless of consequences, 
even if it be to the death of the one positively charged and 
in good health ? Does nature here not laugh at their calam- 
ities, and mock when their disease cometh, because she 
makes on the one hand what she loses on the other? Instead, 
th-en, of regarding the mind as its own, its every action 
proves the contrary. Take the case of a young child sleep- 
ing with an aged diseased person. The complaint of the 
young child of weakness and physical debility matters not — 
disease may even take possession of its vitals, restlessness 
may agitate its little body, its spirit may still complain of 
parting with the vitality which it needs for its support, but 
still this law heeds it not until a vital equilibrium, compar- 
atively speaking, shall take place between the two bodies 
that are thus together and quiescent. Have we any reason 
to suppose that a law like this, the main overseer in nature's 
vast domain, would hearken to the mind of a Webster or a 
Clay, while in the presence of others just a step above the 
idiot, and particularly if sleeping near them, and not produce 
an equilibrium between them as regards their mental electro- 
reactive strength ? If their minds were subjects of natural 
culture alone there would be no escape. We hope, there- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 69 

fore, in the event of a careful interpretation on the part of 
the critic and philosopher of the operations in the vast de- 
partment over which the law of equality obtains, that they 
will, at least, see that our deductions about the spirit of man 
are not without cause. Will they not agree with us, in a 
general sense, from that which has already been penned, that 
like points to like in a special sense, or that the material 
world, with its different systems, stratas, and elements has a 
finger-board at its north, south, east, and west, pointing to 
the body of man as its special production ? And if so, will 
he be pleased to extend his mental vision to the finger-boards 
interior to those now before him, and see what we mean by 
the reHtion which the spirit of man bears to the spiritual 
world 



CHAPTER V. 

Doctrine of Absorption — Clod of Earth and Water— The Falling of an Apple — Mind 
adapted to Impressions — The Body to Absorption — External Elements — Reactive differ- 
ence between Mind and Matter — Mind and its own Thunder-showers — Its wonderful 
Nature — Innate Development of its own Faculties — Mixed up Condition of the Organs 
in Mental Philosophy. 

In the preceding chapters we have indirectly hinted at the 
great doctrine of absorption, which, in the very nature of 
things, obtained in the vital operations of the universe prior 
to the individualization of even the spirit of Adam. Learn- 
ed men may be skeptical and speak differently of nature's 
works, but still this doctrine proclaims everywhere, that no one 
element can produce its specific result upon another, unless 
it, or an influence from it, be absorbed. Just exactly, then, 
in proportion as the element or its influence is absorbed, just 
exactly in that proportion will a specific influence be exerted^ 
and the thing which absorbs participate of the nature of 
the thing absorbed. We take as an example a dry clod of 
earth, w T e place it upon the table and we pour water upon it. 
In this experiment, it is clear, that just exactly in proportion 
as the clod absorbs the water does the water not only exert a 
specific influence upon the clod, but the clod also participates 
of the nature of the water. 

It is also plain, that if the water is poured upon it, and the 
clod is not in a condition to absorb it, it will not participate 
of its nature ; nor be influenced by it. Therefore we say, for 



xMENTAL ALCHEMY. 61 



the sake of being understood, that the clod was the recipient 
of the water in this case, not positively, but negatively. Its 
pores were closed. We venture the remark, therefore, that 
outside of looking at this, which seems to be the most simple 
experiment of nature, the relation which the mind bears to 
that which it receives, cannot be properly understood. We 
beg the reader, therefore, to keep this in mind, as we shall 
have especially to call this effect produced by one element 
upon another to our aid in showing the relation which the 
mind bears to that which it receives and absorbs. The next 
inquiry, then, which seems to present itself is, what is it that 
the mind absorbs 1 We see by the digestive apparatus that 
the coarser department of the body absorbs food and water ; 
the respiratory system absorbs atmosphere and the gases; 
and the nervous system, the electrical fluid. Now, what is it 
that the mind, which is interior to the nervous system, ab- 
sorbs? We answer, impressions. Before we consider this 
part of our subject specially, it might, perhaps, be proper to 
ask nature more closely, as regards the whereabouts of this 
mind or spirit. In doing so, we are sure that the reader will 
have no objection to the following supposition : that is, sup- 
pose we take the systems and elements that are found in our 
physical nature, and, if you please, torture them until the 
the spirit responds and says, " I am here." 

As the bony or osseous system seems to be the first, com- 
mence and torture this. In relation to the living spirit, we 
have here no response. Mechanically fit in and connect the 
circulating system with this, embracing all its fluids of every 
name and nature, and inflict the severest torture. The mind 
speaks not, therefore we know that this real being is not just 
beyond this system. 

Now, for the purpose of understanding this subject, or what 

6 



62 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

we particularly mean, connect the lungs and their append* 
ages, or the respiratory system, with these, as they appear in 
the body, and try the question with increased torture. Still 
the mind speaks not. It cannot, therefore, in the nature of 
things, be even just beyond these, as the disturbance of their 
particles does not reach it. 

Now then, if you please, take the nervous system, mechan- 
ically connect it, with all its homeopathic insinuations, with 
the others, inflict the most unheard-of tortures, occasioning a 
violent succession of waves to pass to the brain ; still, the 
mind responds not — it heeds not, but remains as the corpse, 
entombed in death. Let, then, this system become charged 
naturally with its elastic and nervous attendant, the lightning- 
flash. Now, make the least possible pressure where you did 
before, and a different language entirely is spoken. Re- 
action and response become the characteristic symptoms, 
also, of your mechanical pressure and torture, and something 
says, " Oh ! don't ; you hurt me. 55 Ah ! what is this ? Is 
it either of the systems we have named ? If so, why did they 
not respond before ? Is it the circulating fluid of the nervous 
system ? Certainly not, as it is not of a nature to feel. Then 
the conclusion is positive, and nature accommodates us with 
an answer, not altogether unintelligible, that the pressure 
now made on the periphery disturbs the particles of that fine 
circulating fluid within the body of the nervous system, 
which reaches the whereabouts of this living being. The 
monarch of the body, then, responds by its own reaction 
upon the same fluid, and gives a returning succession of 
waves, saying, " I am here. This is my earthly tabernacle ; 
let it alone." The conclusion, then, forces itself, regardless 
of our belief or learning, that we have this nervo-vital fluid, 
with its systematic system, as the first material garment 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 63 



or covering of the living spirit. Then the disturbances or 
waves occasioned in the finite electrical ocean of each finite 
being beats against and upon the spirit of man, as the "waves 
of the atmosphere do upon his body. This constitutes the 
first material system or kingdom of the living spirit. The 
atmosphere and gases are its second, the fluids of the body 
its third, and the skeleton itself is the fourth. 

Thus we ha^e an analysis of the different systems that 
make the man, with their connection of particles. How, then, 
can the office of the nervous system be misunderstood, in the 
great economy of human existence, if nature is to be believed 
rather than man? Shall we now ask that which has been 
penned in books, if in matter the recuperative power dwells, 
or shall we take nature at her word, and behold it in the re- 
turning succession of waves in the nervous system, as having 
been absorbed from the living spirit ? Can the healing pow- 
er of nature, outside of the response of spirit, be even imag- 
ined ? Where is the man who will venture to do so 1 Num- 
bers, we know, can be found who contend for the innate crea- 
tive power of matter, but where is the man who can support 
such an hypothesis? Upon what limb of nature can he rest 
himself and venture such torturings of the darker ages 1 Is 
that the lamp which is to light him as a physician of nature 1 
And is he satisfied that matter, by its own reaction, possess- 
es the power to make the material body sparkling, joyous, and 
happy. If so, we leave him, with the expression before him, 
that he that walketh in the night stumbleth. 

Having now, as we flatter ourselves, removed some of the 
rubbish from this new and intellectual field of immortal de- 
light, we hope the reader will pursue the investigation further 
in the special culture and acquaintance with mind in its pres- 
ent connection with matter. If so, we have a hope that he 



64 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

will see what we are forced to believe is t>he power of this 
electrical agent in positively changing the mental as well as 
physical secretions. The multifarious operations of this sys- 
tem constitute the platform from which we more understand- 
ingly behold the gradual physical and intellectual develop- 
ment of man. Through this system, also, we look with a 
more correct physiological eye at the physical and mental 
changes through life. This brings us, in the next place, to 
tne inquiry, " What are impressions V J Their inspection 
certainly deserves our attention in the investigation of the 
true philosophy of mind, and their relation to the same — as 
much so as the natural elements in their relations to the body, 
deserve our attention physiologically. We answer, then, by 
impressions adapted to the mind's absorption, we mean, in 
all cases when they are positively acknowledged, a disturb- 
ance of the particles of the vital fluid of the nervous system, 
mechanical, natural, or spiritual. Now, then, as regards the 
sense of hearing. What is it that produces the disturbance 
of the auditory nerve, by which the mind hears 1 We an- 
swer, that it is the waves or undulations of the atmosphere 
beating up against the tympanum or drum of the ear. 

To look at this in the light of common sense, it becomes 
necessary for us to consider where we are, that is, in the at- 
mospherical, gaseous, and electrical ocean of the universe, as 
fish are in the water. 

These elements, then, are constantly pressing up against 
us, and, as we have before remarked, they are constantly ab- 
sorbed by the body. 

. When a person inhales a breath, the atmosphere and gases 
enter the throat and lungs. The relaxation and contraction 
of the muscles of the throat occasion certain waves to pass 
from him, as the center of those waves ; or^ if you please, a 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 65 

succession of disturbances of the particles cf the atmosphere. 
This succession of disturbances vibrates against the tym- 
panum of the ear, and occasions a corresponding disturbance 
of the vital circulation of the auditory nerve, which in turn 
beats up against the living spirit. The spirit responds ; the 
impression is received. These waves, in reality, may be rep- 
resented as mere effects ; but it is certainly clear, that as the 
living spirit stands at the foundation of the relaxation and 
contraction of the muscles which produce this succession of 
disturbances, there is a spiritual emanation brought with 
them, which, when positively absorbed, produces its peculiar 
nature in the mind that absorbs it. Can the mind hear, 
without a healthy circulation along the auditory nerve, al- 
though wave after wave may beat up against the tympanum 
of the ear 1 Can the mind see, if there is not a healthy cir- 
culation along the optic nerve, although emanations may con- 
tinually reach it ? In other words, can the mind absorb an 
impression through the sense of sight from the external world, 
if there is not a healthy circulation along the optic nerve ? 
And can any object be seen by the mind, mechanically, un- 
less its emanating impression is absorbed ? We give this as 
an example which will apply to all the senses, that no im- 
pression whatever can reach the mind without first producing 
a succession of disturbances of the nervous fluid. Is it not, 
clear that that which we hear, and positively absorb, exerts a 
specific influence upon our mental being as well as that which 
we see, smell, taste, and feel ? What is it, then, that the 
mind receives ? It is impressions ; and what are impressions 
but this succession of waves imparted to the nervous system 
by external disturbances ? Here, then, we see the relation 
which a man bears to the different impressions to which he 
may be subjected, and the reason why these impressions oc- 



06 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



casion his mental being to participate of their nature when 
they are positively absorbed.. Although they may be vitally 
concerned in his intellectuality, still they are not his mind. 
There are impressions to be absorbed, and the truth is, there 
must be something capable of their absorption, else they in 
vain may reach the organs of sense. 

I press the question here, to know if a man's intellect and 
his mind are the same thing. Will it answer to say, that 
because a young man receives at college his education, con- 
sisting of a multitude of impressions which his mind absorbs, 
those impressions are his mind? Certainly not, for we 
might, with the same degree of propriety, say that the water 
poured upon the clod, when it becomes positively absorbed, 
is the clod itself, because the clod participates of its nature 
and is influenced by it. Separate, then, the water and the 
clod, and we unquestionably have a line of demarkation, un- 
drTstandingly, between mind and intellect. This little ex- 
pen merit with the clod and tumbler of water is the key 
alone, in my humble opinion, by which the door of nature 
can be unlocked, and permission obtained for a true under- 
standing of the mysterious operations of man's physical and 
mental existence. Lock at the infinite electrical fluid of the 
world as it is inductively absorbed by every atom of matter, 
and I am sure you will see that the absorption of a tumbler 
of water, when poured upon the ground, opens up to the in- 
tellect of man a more interesting field of true and unmistak- 
able philosophy than the falling of an apple from a tree. In 
this great doctrine of physical and mental absorption, when 
it may be(properly understood, we certainly have a true sys- 
tem of physiology and philosophy as well as theology. 

. We do not, in this place, mean to say, that a man's mind 
stands, in every particular, exactly in relation to impressions 



M E N T A L A L C II £ M Y. 67 



as the clod Joes to the water, but we mean to say, that just 
exactly in proportion as the clod absorbs the water does the 
clod participate of the nature of the water. Such is the 
case with mind ; as it positively absorbs an impression, it 
participates of the nature of that impression. We have ia 
this the great distinguishing feature between mind and mat- 
ter ; that is, that the clod when once moistened by the water 
has not the power within itself to react in the production of 
the same liquid showers. But when the mind has received 
an impression, and has become moistened and influenced by 
it, it possesses the property of reaction in the production of 
the same moisture, and by that means recalls the joyous as 
well as stormy showers of past life at pleasure. Then, be- 
cause of the moisture which this impression has produced, it 
can, by its own inherent creative energy, moisten and grad- 
ually develop other departments of mental culture, besides 
those which the impression received may have a tendency to 
foster and feed. Therefore, it will be perceived, that mind 
possesses, in a great measure, the power to produce its own 
thunder-showers for the moistening and developing of its in- 
tellectual growth. 

These, then, we present as being the two great features or 
properties of mind not possessed by matter. The minds of 
some men are so fruitful with these little thunder-showers, 
that they seem to live almost within themselves, and in con- 
sequence of this peculiar faculty seem to take, by intuition, 
what other men have to labor for years to understanding^ 
obtain. I grant you that time, with the perplexities of life, 
as the spirit seems to be worn out with the things of the 
world, may apparently present a drying up of these impres- 
sions ; but this is no reason for believing that they are not 
indelibly written upon the involuntary chamber of man's ex- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



istence. This* is what the world calls the loss of memory; 
that is, the apparent inability on the part of the mind to 
produce at pleasure these internal thunder-showers by which 
former impressions are recalled and understood. These are 
the high distinguishing features between the properties of 
matter and the properties of mind. They may not be ac- 
knowledged at the first glance, but when nature is taken at 
her word, and the action of human beings everywhere prop- 
erly looked at, the new discoveries which have been made, 
and the chariot- wheels of the genius and originality of all 
ages shall be inspected, we are almost satisfied of a positive 
conclusion on the part of the reader. If he still have his 
doubts, let him ask himself the question, can the clod moisten 
itself by its own inherent power of vital stimuli ? If he ad- 
mits that it cannot, wo are satisfied he will at least see our 
meaning in the corresponding relation of mind to impressions. 
Such is the nature of the mind, that even when we read a 
speech made by a distinguished man, even if it were spoken 
and penned centuries ago, in consequence of the emanation 
of spirit which the speaker implanted in the very words ar- 
ticulated, we cannot avoid participating of the nature of the 
feelings of the speaker just exactly in proportion as his intel- 
lectual emanation in them may be understanding^ absorbed. 

This emanation, then, exercises an influence over us, and, 
in a great measure, gives its peculiar cast to the mentality of 
the being that thus intellectually absorbs the words spoken 
and written. This is unquestionably a source of impressions 
by which no ordinary amount of the vitality of man is con- 
sumed, and from which he receives many of his intellectual 
characteristics. 

The brain is the center of our physical organization, and 
therefore the point of spiritual electro-reaction. The head, 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



then, of necessity, becomes the material and external point 
of the different conditions and manifestations of its innate 
susceptibility and mental power. We therefore naturally 
look to this, the central organ, for the different mental facul- 
ties and their secretions, as we do to the body for the physical 
organs and their secretions. We know it to be a physiolog- 
ical certainty, that when one of the physical organs pours out 
its secretions more abundantly than another, the body partic- 
ipates of the nature of those secretions. It is the nature of 
the stomach to secrete the gastric juice, and of the liver to 
secrete the bile ; it is also the nature of the faculty of mirth- 
fulness, when stimulated, in a mental sense, to pour out its 
secretions, causing an involuntary disposition on the part of 
the mind to laugh. If the individual laughs, it is positive 
evidence of the secretions of that mental faculty being 
abundantly poured out, as they certainly cause his mental 
being to participate of their nature. 

This we know to be so, from the fact that when a physical 
organ pours out its secretions abundantly, it makes the phys- 
ical being participate of its nature. We give this as an ex- 
ample of all the physical and mental faculties, as lying at the 
foundation of our different physical and mental dispositions. 
With the specific secretions of each before us, we can go 
somewhat understandingly now into the investigation of the 
true principles of mental philosophy. If the medical student 
were to attend college for years, and the lecturer on physiol- 
ogy were to mix up the secretions of the different physical 
organs so that he could make no distinction in his mind be- 
tween them, a thorough knowledge of physiology, or of the 
facts in physiology, on his part, wculd, under thes*e circum- 
stances, certainly be impossible. If this holds in the less 
complicated departments of human existence* how can it be 



70 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

expected that we are to understand any thing at all about 
mind when the secretions of its different faculties, or organs, 
are thus confounded together and given forth to the world in 
that condition ? Each mental organ, let it be ever so insig- 
nificant, has its office to fulfill, as much as the smallest gland 
of the human body. We respectfully ask the question, there- 
fore, how can we arrive at a true understanding of mind un- 
til we first look at the legitimate secretions of its different 
faculties, which give to it their specific direction and charac- 
ter ? Why will gentlemen, then, find fault with us for re- 
fusing to believe in the present system of philosophy, which 
has, in a great measure, passed by the peculiar properties of 
each faculty, and by which they seem to be resolved wholly 
into soul, spirit, will, conscience, and imagination? All, 
therefore, being mixed up and confused, constituting a con- 
glomeration unfit, as may be perceived in its application, to 
the proper understanding even of the most simple department 
of physical philosophy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Influence of Atmospherical Electricity upon the Nervous System of Man— Ele- 
ments in the External World Produce like Elements in our Bodies— The Electro- 
Reactive Trinity of the Nervous System— Our Natural and Spiritual Vitality is In- 
ductive — The Instinctive Faculties come from the same Source as our Spirits Influ- 

ence Exerted by Impressions against the Power of the Will — Striking Instances Re- 
lated — Method of ascertaining the Electrical Condition ot the System. 

We have a hope that the reader is now prepared for the 
special understanding of the great purpose that we have in 
view in presenting the foregoing hypothesis of nature and 
mind. That purpose is, in an especial consideration, to pre- 
sent the changes which the influence of atmospherical elec- 
tricity, by the adaptation of means to ends, alchemistically 
produces upon the nervous system of man, and through that 
system, upon the other systems, spiritual as well as natural, 
that are concerned in his existence. We have, as plainly as 
we can. presented the relations which the dhTerent systems 
composing man, bear to the external world. In order, then, 
to see this more plainly, does not his physical system absorb 
the elements of the material world, or nature, and does not 
his mind absorb impressions 1 If so, it is decidedly certain 
that his mental and physical nature must, in proportion as 
they are absorbed, be governed and controlled by them. 
Would there be any thing imaginary in presenting the idea 
that lime, iron, and water, chemically combined in the food 
which a man eats, and in the liquids which he drinks, go to 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



produce these particular elements in his body? Like, then, 
goes to like. 

It is as impossible for iron, when taken into a man's body, 
to be chemically changed into water, as it is for it to be thus 
metamorphosed in the external world. Like elements in the 
external world go to like elements in the body. Here we 
have nature's foundation of our physical existence ; and if 
like elements of the spirit world do not bear the same relation 
to a spiritual body, there must be a chasm somewhere in the 
works of creation. The nervous system of man, as we have 
before stated, seems to be the great line of demarkation be- 
tween his spirit and his body. The nervous system becomes 
the conducting one of his electrical fluid, as much as the veins 
and arteries are the channels for conveying the arterial and 
venous blood. In this nervous system, then, we have the 
lightning, which is directly concerned in all the thunder- 
clouds of passion, of feeling, and of sympathy. This elastic 
fluid seems to have been armed w r ith power to immediately 
surround the living spirit while the spirit of man is, for a 
time at least, imprisoned within the body. 

Every thought, therefore, of the spirit disturbs the elec- 
trical fluid as surely as the relaxation and contraction of the 
muscles of the throat disturb the atmosphere in which the 
body moves. Hence the nervous system is impregnated from 
the sole of the foot to the crown of the head with the living 
spirit. Therefore all the innate faculties of the spirit only 
pour out their peculiar secretions, manifesting the disposition 
of the man to the world by the special presence and stimu- 
lation of this fluid. As it is perfectly clear, then, that 
impressions of the same nature, although they reach each in- 
dividual's mind by disturbing the same fluid., do not produce 
the same influences upon all, there must be a physical trinity 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



as regards the reactive condition of the nervous system. But 
to intelligibly present that trinity, we fear, is almost too great 
a task for us to perform. Before we undertake to do so, and 
to point out what it is, it will be admitted, we think, by all 
physiologists as well as naturalists, that each individual's 
body in the state in which we now are, is dissimilarly vital- 
ized and electrified. It will also be admitted that our ma- 
terial vitality is nothing more than inductive vitality, and the 
same must follow of necessity as regards our spiritual vital- 
ity ; that is, that the spirit is not life itself, but absorbs that 
element from the spiritual world, and consequently life is a 
part of the nature and being of spirit, as water is a part of 
the nature and being of the body. 

In the constitution of things, from the apparent primary 
distance of the spirit from matter, this peculiar element is 
presented in nature, in man and in animals, as well as the 
flowers of the field, by the agency of this fine fluid. It will 
not be looked upon as an unpardonable hypothesis, then, for 
us to say, that all the qualities of the mind materially regard 
the condition of this fluid. This system, then, becomes the 
acting, and the mind or spirit the reacting one in the great 
variety of the physical and mental manifestations of all creat- 
ures. In the higher reactions man seems to present his pre- 
rogative as a human being ; still we find him, in a measure, in 
many instances manifesting the instinctive dispositions below 
him, although they may not be so plainly developed in any 
one man. Being, therefore, from his relation to the spirit 
world, in possession of properties an^faculties that involve 
the highest reaction, prevents him from manifesting so plainly 
the instinctive disposition of the monkey or other animals. 

These instinctive faculties, however, are in him but are 
deprived of their active development by the higher reactive 

7 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



dispensations of the vital fluid of his nervous system. Here 
we have presented the doctrine of special instinctive spiritual 
absorption, of which man alone can boast. This makes him 
the lord of creation. And whether a cat, a dog, a horse, or 
a monkey has an individual spiritual existence after death, 
does not disprove this doctrine of special spiritual absorption, 
which surrounds the human being ; but one thing is clear, this 
great process of spiritual digestion means something. 

We have not the time here to pursue the investigation of 
the doctrine of special spiritual absorption as seems every- 
where to be manifested in creation, ,and only drop these im- 
perfect deductions for the reflection of the reader, that he 
may more clearly see the great importance of understanding 
the influence and operation of the nervous system of man as 
well as the lightning's flash of the universe. Let us look at 
this, however, one moment. The monkey can move himself 
about. Now, what is this that possesses the power to react 
in the production of voluntary movements ? Did this some- 
thing come or emanate from the clod, the water, the atmos- 
phere, or electricity ? Certainly not, for these of themselves 
are matter, and therefore inert and motionless. How can it 
be possible, then, that they, in combination, even could give 
life to a special being that would manifest a different nature 
from themselves ? We should have reason to suppose such 
to be the case, if we ever saw the clod move about without 
force separate and apart from itself. The same may be 
/said of water, atmosphere, and electricity, the last of which, 
equally with the others, requires the action of some extra- 
neous influence before it will move. We press this question, 
and ask, is it reasonable to suppose that that something in 
the monkey that moves its body about from place to place by 
acting upon its vitality, emanated fron: matter? If it did 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 75 

not, then it comes from some department of the spiritual 
world from which the spirit of man came also. Is there 
any thing unreasonable in this, when we see and know 
that the body of the monkey comes from the same element 
of nature as the body of man? Both alike, according to 
their relations to nature, are dependent upon the elements 
that are found in the material world for their existence. 
We freely acknowledge, therefore, that when we contrast the 
dictionary of ~ nature with that of man, we cannot understand 
the isolated meaning of instinct, as commonly used for the 
purpose of expressing this something that dictates the mo- 
tions and the actions of the monkey. We understand it to 
be a something that is directly and positively in possession 
of elements that belong to the spiritual world, and in conse- 
quence of which the monkey is capable, as well as many 
other animals, by his reaction to impart the vital stimulus 
of his body to certain faculties which will pour out the same 
secretions, giving the same direction to his being, as regards 
that faculty, as it does in man. Therefore we say, that the 
something which dictates the motion and action of the monkey, 
as well as the motion and action of all creatures in their 
great variety of special developments, emanates from the 
lower elements of the spiritual world, and are therefore as 
indestructible and eternal as that something in man which is 
capable of extending itself back to the time w T hen the morn- 
ing sun rose in his primeval splendor, as well as to compre- 
hend the relation between cause and effect. 

This something could not, in the nature of things, there- 
fore, come from nothing nor from matter. Hence from the 
premises which nature unmistakably presents, we are forced 
to conclude that the lower stratas and elements of the spirit 
ual world, to which the spirit of man is traveling, also claims 



76 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

that something as its own — whether in the way of indi- 
vidual immortality, or that their special existence is swallow- 
ed up in the spirituality of man — for the reasons before 
named, is a matter of thought worthy the theologian and the 
philosopher. One of the two must be as certain as that man 
himself has an immortal principle. Nature declares this to 
be so as well as revelation, for " who knoweth that the spirit 
of man goeth upward and the spirit of the beast goeth down- 
ward." The spirit of man complains not of their place here, 
and how do we know that they will lessen the happiness of 
man's immortal spirit when separated from the body, if they 
should be the special inhabitants of the same interior worid. 
The works, therefore, of that almighty arm which wound up 
the vast machinery of the natural and spiritual world and 
swung the electro-spiritual pendulum thereof, by which crea- 
tion swarms with living beauty, and by which its special pro- 
ductions are filled with joy and gladness, are too vast for 
human comprehension. That rule of nature which occasions 
like to beget like, and like to go to like involuntarily, forces 
the conclusion of the spiritual return of the reacting principle 
of all creatures. 

Here we leave this subject for the present, having offered 
these few suggestions (which may go for what they are worth), 
and pass directly to the consideration of the physical trinity 
of the nervous system of man. In consequence of its prime 
relation to the principle of reaction, it will be more proper, 
perhaps, to consider it in an electro-reactive light. Then 
we say, it appears from experiments, unmistakable in their 
nature, that there are three distinct electro-reactive condi- 
tions found to obtain in man ; thus showing the extent to 
which an impression will be absorbed, exercising an influence 
which the will itself will not have the power to resist. Im 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 77 



pressions do influence the vital apparatus of man against the 
power of his will, as may be clearly seen in this experiment, 
which any one can exercise upon himself. That is, to will 
the action of his heart and arteries to quicken. If not success- 
ful at first, try again with all the will-force, and he will per- 
ceive still the same involuntary movement continues. This 
is an experiment of a will-impression made upon his existence, 
and does unquestionably show the extent to which this will- 
force will be absorbed in the region beyond consciousness. 
It is clear, that if the will could thus actively pass into that 
region, the action of the heart and arteries would be quickened 
just exactly in proportion to the effort of the will to make an 
impression, and the extent to which that impression was ab- 
sorbed. Suppose, then, the same man is walking carelessly 
along, and a beautiful green snake, innocent and harmless as 
any creature can be, falls or springs suddenly before him, is 
not the action of his heart and arteries quickened by the im- 
pression which this snake makes upon him 1 Could his will- 
force produce this effect ? If it could, the moment he saw the 
snake, to will would be to prevent the authoritative absorp- 
tion of the impression in the region beyond consciousness. 
Here is an influence exerted, then, over his vital apparatus, 
as is known by the visible effects in the case, against the 
power of the will. And w T hat gentlemen mean, who under- 
stand any thing at all about the principles of human existence 
and the nature of impressions, and the action of the will upon 
the human economy, when they say that impressions cannot 
control a man against his will, is something that we are unable 
to comprehend. Now, then, if you can find a man who can 
produce the same result upon his involuntary existence by 
his will-power as the impression of this snake produced, then 
you will find a man who, whatever may be the reactive con- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



dition of his nervous system, can prevent the positive absorp- 
tion of an impression against his will in the region beyond 
consciousness. 

To control such a being against his will would be to pro- 
duce an effect without a cause. There must be a cause for 
every effect ; and hence there might be thousands of exam- 
ples cited in the ordinary transactions of men, which would 
prove that impressions exercise an influence over them against 
the power of the will. We will state a very striking in- 
stance of the power of impressions. It is the case of a very 
interesting young lady. A friend of hers concealed himself 
behind a door through which he knew she would pass, with the 
intention of giving her, as he supposed, a harmless fright in a 
spirit of fun and frolic. As the lady approached the spot, he 
started suddenly from his concealment, and the impression 
made upon her, merely by the suddenness of his unexpected 
appearance, was so great as to destroy her life. Does any 
man in his senses suppose that her will had the power to pre- 
vent this ? 

Another remarkable case of the power of impressions, is 
that of a lady in Baltimore, a number of years ago, who, by 
the action of her own mind upon the auditory nerve, when no 
living being was near, heard a voice distinctly say to her, 
" On next New Year's Day, at twelve o'clock, thou shalt 
surely die." Although the time had nearly twelve months to 
run, and notwithstanding that she enjoyed excellent health up 
to the very day that had been thus fixed for her dissolution, 
and in despite of all that her friends and acquaintances could 
say, who assembled for the purpose of preventing the active 
absorption of the impression, the moment the hour arrived 
she died. Was this a control exercised over her existence 
against what some persons are pleased to call the will-force ? 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 79 

How much power, then, can a man's will exercise over his 
real existence? Is not the will a property of the mind, and 
has it any power save that which it absorbs from the mind 1 
Is it not controlled by the mind? Does not the mind com- 
mand it to raise the arm ? Does it obey ? If it does, it cer- 
tainly shows, by its action, that it is controlled by a some- 
thing separate and apart from, though connected with it. 
Can that which is controlled be equal to the power which ex- 
ercises control over it ? 

We again press this question, as it has much to do with 
the practical department of mental alchemy, without even 
seeing an experiment, alchemistically, on the part of the 
reader and skeptic, to know if impressions do not exercise 
influence over us, and occasion our actions to participate of 
their nature against the power of the will. If this can be 
seen and recognized as being among the categorical terms of 
our existence, we are ready to present the condition of the 
nervous system, which may convey authoritative impression 
to the mind, and occasion it to participate of their nature 
against the power of the will. And if it does participate of 
their nature, and the will-power of man is not interfered with, 
then we contend for the existence of the science we advocate, 
upon principles that will not fear the ordeal of public or pri- 
vate scrutiny. Men may laugh, children may imitate, the 
lion may roar, but facts are stubborn things ; and if they are 
those of nature, they will remain as true as the law of equi- 
librium. 

The electro-reactive trinity of the nervous system, which 
admits these impressions against the power of the will, call- 
ing forth the highest reaction and absorption of mental im- 
pressions, is certainly different from that condition which only 
admits the authoritative absorption of physical impressions, as 



80 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

well as that condition which admits them not at all against 
the operation of the will. These three constitute the trinity, 
which we recognize as the electro-reactive trinity of the 
nervo- vital system. 

These three, when properly understood, plainly present 
the key to the nervous system, showing not only the reactive 
condition of the mind in a physical recuperative sense, but 
the extent to which the mind may be controlled by impres- 
sions against the will-force. The inquiry will here naturally 
present itself, how do you distinguish the different conditions 
of the nervous system 1 

Is one man negatively electrified, and another positively 
electrified ? Certainly not, for the laws of nature forbid his 
existence without both positive and negative electricity in his 
nervous system. 

Every idea of the laws of nature anywhere presupposes the 
presence of the positive and negative, and hence the attrac- 
tive and repulsive forces. What induces men to say that a 
subject, controlled by impressions from the operator, is nega- 
tive, while the operator is positive, electrically, we are at a 
loss to know. 

The reactive condition of each individual's nervous system 
seems to be the relation which these forces bear to each oth- 
er. If they bear a certain relation, that relation is, properly 
speaking, a condition that admits of reaction, and, compared 
with the other conditions, it is more properly expressed by 
calling them conditions of electro-reaction. Another relation 
of this force would be properly expressed by calling it a state 
of positive electro-reaction. The first, when an impression 
is made for the purpose of being absorbed against the power 
of the will is negatived ; the second is absorbed sufficiently so 
as to overpower the will in those operations of the body which 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 81 

call forth only physical reaction ; the third, those reactions 
which are directly concerned in all the mental operations of 
his existence as well as the physical. How or why this con- 
dition of things, as regards the nervous sys*tem of man, is so, 
it would be nonsensical to discuss, as much so as it would be 
to endeavor to discuss the reason why the God of nature has 
placed over the material world two different influences*. Well, 
then, in a practical point of view, the question is still unsettled 
as to what is meant by this negative state of electro-reaction, 
the physical and the positive. To be plain, it regards prac- 
tically the extent to which the mind may acknowledge a me- 
chanical disturbance of the circulation within the body of the 
nervous system. Now, then, let us examine this. 

Suppose we take hold of the hand of a man, and involve one 
of the many nerves which come off from the spine, or make 
pressure upon any portion of the body, he certainly feels it. 
If there is no other symptom accompanying the pressure, 
save the feeling, then the man's nervous system is in a state 
of negative electro-reaction. It will be noticed that, from the 
point where the disturbance is made, a succession of disturb- 
ances of the nervous fluid passes to the brain. Now, then, 
if the mind does not feel this succession of disturbances, as 
they pass to the brain, then the individual's nervous system is 
in a state of negative electro-reaction, and it would be contra- 
ry to nature for any man's impressions, magnetically, psycho- 
logically, or alchemistically, to exercise an influence over him 
against his will. 

Are w r e now understood as regards this, the most isolated 
condition, from the primary, original, reactive state of the 
nervous system? If we are, then we will proceed to remark 
that if, when the pressure is made, the succession of disturb- 
ances should be felt to- the spine as they pass up to the brain, 



82 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

and no further, then we say that the subject's nervous sys- 
tem is in a state of physical electro-reaction, for the reason 
that impressions properly made will control his physical sys- 
tem against the power of the will ; that is, you can, after 
properly understanding this subject, straighten his arms, so 
that the will cannot bend them, seat him in a chair, so that he 
cannot rise, besides other physical phenomena that are equal- 
ly interesting and astounding. Are the symptoms, now on 
pressure, in this case, different from the first ? Certainly ; 
as both feel the pressure where it is made, and the last one 
mentioned also feels the succession of disturbances, or waves,* 
of the nervous system, as they pass on up to the spine. And 
we remark here, that it would certainly be contrary to nature, 
if, on his mind's acknowledging or feeling this succession of 
disturbances also to the spine, the operator, understanding his 
business, could not get a response, in the absorption of an 
impression by the mind, sufficient to control his physical sys- 
tem against his will. 

If this is understood, then, being what we call the physical 
electro-reactive state, we are ready to call attention to the 
highest or positive electro-reactive condition ; that is, that on 
making the pressure properly, if the mind should acknowl- 
edge this succession of disturbances, as it passes up to the 
brain, and over the whole nervous system, then we say that 
the influence thus communicated has been positively felt 
throughout the system ; the succession of disturbances has 
been acknowledged by the sense of feeling, even to the very 
dome of the spirit, where all impressions are received and 
absorbed through the same agency. This is ind^d exhibit- 
ing an influence physically, at least, throughout the whole 
nervous system. It is positively acknowledged, because the 
succession of disturbances is felt. Now, then, it would be 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 83 

contrary to nature if in such a condition of the nervous sys- 
tem the operator should not be enabled to get a mental re- 
sponse, exercising mental control against the power of the 
will. There are three persons before you ; each of the three, 
on making the pressure as aforesaid, acknowledge to you dif- 
ferent symptoms ; the first, simply the feeling ; the second, 
the feeling, with the succession of disturbances of the elec- 
trical fluid of the nervous system to the spine ; the third, the 
feeling, and the succession of disturbances to the brain, and 
throughout the minute ramifications of the system. This 
makes the matter all plain, with these guides before us, and 
the control which one individual can exercise over another is 
reduced to a mathematical certainty. These are the reactive 
rules which nature has implanted in the nervous system, over 
which no individual can possibly pass ; that is, if we speak of 
control from the authority of nature. 

Now, then, when you have thus made your pressure pos- 
itively felt through the nervous system, as we have thus laid 
down, you certainly speak to the mind from the highest 
authority of its official relations, and unless the mind has 
some other vitality from which the will can absorb extra 
power, then it follows of necessity that your impressions 
must absorb more of the vital power from the subject's in- 
voluntary being than the will can ; and if so, his actions must 
participate of the nature of your impressions, and not of the 
nature of his will. 

This is a deeply interesting subject in many points of 
view, and must, from its very nature, open up to us new and 
interesting fields of mental and moral delight ; as well as the 
proper road to nature's most luxuriant field of physical and 
mental progression. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Reactive Condition of the Nervous System further considered— Action of Will and Mind 
— Conflicting Forces of Electricity — Equality produces Death — Illustration respecting 
Motion and Life — Oneness of Action on the part of the Will of the Infinite. 

We have been speaking of the different conditions of the 
nervous system as they are found by experiment to be natu- 
rally ; that is, that persons are in this positive electro-reactive 
condition who have never specially subjected themselves to 
any mesmeric, psychological, or alchemistic process. 

Persons are in a physical reactive state also who have 
never subjected themselves to any special influence. And 
the large proportion of men in the United States and in the 
world are in the isolated, negative, electro-reactive condition. 
We have found gentlemen of the highest respectability, and 
who were the greatest skeptics on this subject, whose minds 
on pressure, properly made as before stated, acknowledged 
this succession of disturbances, and in consequence of which 
our impressions were absorbed at once, and we were enabled 
to exercise a control over them against the power of their 
will. This control by the operator over persons in this con- 
dition, in a natural state, is not had in consequence, as you 
will perceive, of any physical influence from him, nor is it 
had through the agency of the subject's imagination, but 
rests itself upon the unmistakable physical trinity of the 
nervous system. We here repeat, and wish it distinctly un- 
derstood, that no man can control another against his will by 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 85 

his impressions, unless those symptoms that we have men- 
tioned accompany his mechanical pressure. We are now 
speaking of alchemistic control. The psychological and 
magnetic are, in many instances, accomplished, simply by 
catching the eye, and in that case, if you will ask the subject 
if he does not feel a sensation pervading his nervous system, 
corresponding to the one that we have named, on pressure, 
and the answer is that he does not, then we will admit the 
theory of a physical influence, passing from the operator, 
which enables him to control the subject. We regret ex- 
ceedingly that we are compelled to touch so lightly on this 
part of our subject ; but as we intend to present our views 
and experiences, however humble and insignificant they may 
be, in a large work which is now in preparation, we hope 
those who are directly interested in a thorough and practical 
understanding of the subject, will patiently wait till time will 
permit us to carefully lay that which we may have to say . 
before the public for investigation and scrutiny. 

One more point in relation to the changes which take 
place in the nervous system by the different processes that 
are instituted ; that is, if a subject still is in a state of neg- 
ative electro-reaction, how do you manage to bring him into 
a state of physical and positive electro-reaction? What in- 
fluences are at work in the production of the change, and 
how is it possible that, one man sitting down and taking hold 
of the hands of another, looking him steadily in the eye, the 
magnetic state is produced 1 How does it happen that by 
looking at a zinc and copper plate, or a wafer, a man becomes 
magnetized or psychologized ; and how does it happen that 
when he takes hold of the thumb of one hand with the fore- 
finger and thumb of the other, closes his eyes, and makes 
pressure just sufficiently hard to feel it, that a change takes 

8 



86 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

place as regards the reactive condition of his nervous system, 
as it does happen and has happened in thousands of cases ? 
There certainly must be a cause. Every effect presupposes 
a cause. We need not, therefore, when we see a subject sit- 
ting down and following these directions, although he may be 
hundreds of miles from any human being, suppose that he is 
not subjecting himself positively to the influences around 
him. All will admit, that if the will is passive the external 
elements are absorbed in a greater degree, for it is reason- 
able to suppose that the reactive powers will be replenished 
by the vital agency which the will gives up at the time, and 
that that agency increases the electrical and respiratory ac- 
tion of the surface. Therefore we can easily perceive a 
greater absorption of those elements under a passive than 
under an active state of the will. 

It is plain and easy of comprehension, that if the will is ap- 
propriating a certain amount of the vitality of the nervous 
system to a multitude of impressions, that vitality at the same 
time cannot be appropriated for recuperative purposes. 

Well, says the reader, I do not see for my life, how even 
this state of things, that is, the will absorbing only vitality 
enough from the involuntary chamber to support but one im- 
pression this side of consciousness, how that condition of 
things should occasion such an electro-reactive change to take 
place in the nervous system. 

Bear it in mind, that no man's nervous system can ever 
reach this passive electro-reactive condition unless his mind 
can so govern and control the amount of vitality as not to per- 
mit one of its highest properties, the will, to absorb only 
enough to support one impression. 

But how this can effect it is indeed mysterious. The most 
learned say it never can be explained, and therefore it must 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 87 

be given up in despair. We do not say that the explana- 
tions we shall give will be satisfactory to others ; but we give 
them for what they are worth, with the hope that if they are 
not true, and in accordance with every principle of nature, 
that some person who is more competent to discharge this 
elevated duty, so much needed and looked for at this time, 
will present us a better one. Look, then, at the subject, 
fitting in an easy posture, making pressure upon his thumb, 
or any other part of the body just hard enough to feel it, with 
his eyes closed, and bis will endowed with vitality at the time 
only sufficient to support the one impression, that of feeling ; 
all others are dismissed, this side of the cerebellum, and you 
see a result coming from that condition, as the facts in the 
case incontestibly prove, corresponding to that which causes 
the reactive condition of the electrical principle of the uni- 
verse to make creation swarm with life, order, and beauty. 

A reactive and recuperative change, then, does take place, 
and how could it take place unless the same element ab- 
sorbed was in the electro-reactive condition. 

Then we say that the electricity of the atmosphere, from 
the adaptation of means to ends, is absorbed reactively during 
this condition of the will, by the nervous system, and imparts 
its corresponding reactive condition to the nervous system of 
the subject that thus absorbs it under the oneness of action 
on the part of his will. By experiments, this is a demonstra- 
ble fact, and presents to the investigating mind the dangerous 
consequences of an unnecessary retention of the will in the 
region of the brain, on this side of consciousness. 

If the experiments in mental alchemy prove any thing at 
all, they present in a light, easy of comprehension, the fact 
that when the will is actively engaged in attending to the 
business of the cerebrum, the demand made upon the nervous 



83 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

system for vitality to support the attention is undoubtedly 
greater than the supply. The involuntary powers, or cere- 
bellum, . are correspondingly robbed of their nervo-vitality 
when the will thus becomes unmanageable, and will not, from 
five to ten hours in the twenty-four, cease its demand upon 
that portion of the brain beyond consciousness, for the sup- 
port of the portion this side of consciousness. 

These constitute the double action of the mind upon the 
nervous system ; and if this double action continues, it will 
follow of necessity that the absorption from the external ele- 
ments, on the part of the respiratory action of the surface, 
will be negatived, for the reason that the will is in positive 
action, and as such, appears to use the recuperative force of 
the replenishing energy of man, which seems to reside myste- 
riously in the region beyond consciousness. This is the 
force which the recuperative powers would, if not thus ab- 
sorbed by the will, appropriate to the opening and shutting 
of the surface, and the taking in of the elements that are con- 
tinually beating up against it. Then the unnecessary re- 
tention of the will in the voluntary chamber can so isolate the 
different systems of man, on the principles thus laid down, as 
to produce not only disease, but death itself. Are we under- 
stood, now, in relation to this double action of the mind, 
which is only manifested by the constant and continued de- 
mands upon the vitality of the nervous system 1 And is it 
not reasonable to say, in considering the relation of demand 
and supply, the will-force being too constant in action, as 
every motion occasioned by it or the mind supposes reaction 
and consumption of vitality, that the condition of the nervous 
system, which was before very reactive, would undergo a 
change. Must it not of necessity ultimately assume a nega- 
tive state of electro-reaction, from the fact that this will- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



force does unquestionably isolate the elements of the body in 
a reactive sense, at least, from the reactive condition of those 
that are external ? 

As regards the reactive condition of the nervous system, 
no one, we suppose, will deny the different degrees that ob- 
tain in different persons, and that the nervous system is vi- 
tally concerned in all the degrees and conditions that may be 
found. 

But these considerations, separate and apart from placing 
it by the side of nature, would not lead to a satisfactory un- 
derstanding of these changes that are within effected. There- 
fore, we call especial attention to the infinite nervous system 
of the world, by which we mean the electrical fluid of the at- 
mosphere, which fluid is everywhere, and in every atom of mat- 
ter, in some condition or other. And hence we say that its 
highest reactive condition is what may properly be termed the 
positive. This fluid is one thing, and the two different influ- 
ences which it exerts upon matter is another. If there are two 
fluids, the subject before us will, with the most profound in- 
spection, still remain as mysterious as the operations of 
eternal night ; but if there is but one, we can in a measure, 
at least, understand through that agency those effects that 
look to be mysterious. 

Is there a nervous system of the world, and is there a 
spiritual system ? And is there a God who spoke them into 
existence, not from nothing but from Himself? And are they 
in a condition to continually absorb and acknowledge the in- 
fluence of His almighty hand 1 If they are God, then we 
have no more to say ; but if they are, as before remarked, 
emanations and creations from Him, we beg the liberty of 
saying more. In connection, then, with this electrical fluid, 
and the two different influences, wsitive and negative, which 



90 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

it everywhere presents, we have, within the same circumfer- 
ence motion, as one of the properties or one of the effects 
of the belligerent actions of the two. Outside of that mo- 
tion we could have no idea of recuperative energy, no idea of 
reaction. 

This electrical fluid, then, which passes from the sun as 
the great center of our physical organization to the circum- 
ference of the solar system, is one thing, and its action upon 
matter that is tangible, is another. A certain amount of* 
that fluid must, and that too continually, be in positive ac- 
tion, and a certain amount in negative or latent action ; for, 
take a common battery, and by chemical action especially 
develop it to try an experiment, to see what nature means by 
these two different influences. If, then, on the proper con- 
nection with zinc and copper, by means of a solution of sul- 
phate of copper, you connect with the battery an electro- 
magnet, with its positive and negative poles, for the purpose 
of absorbing the different influences that are taking place in 
the solution, and bring the magnet in contact with small 
particles of iron, it will be found that one of the poles scat- 
ters or repels those particles from the center to the circum- 
ference, and the other produces immediately the opposite 
effect, and attracts them from the circumference to the 
center. These, indeed, appear plain, but as simple as they 
are, they overrule the operations of the universe. Man, too, 
is compelled to bow to the comparative authority of these 
two forces. It may be contended by scientific men that these 
two influences are equal throughout nature ; and that when 
a man becomes diseased, an equality of them must be pro- 
duced before he can be cured. 

But still this does not make it so. For if one of these 
influences separately will attract matter, and the opposite 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 91 



one is brought in equal* contact with it, no attraction now 
presents itself; but the effect before produced is neutralized 
by the counteracting effect of the one with which it is brought 
in contact. Hence an equality of this fluid would unques- 
tionably stop the revolutions of the globe in its vast and ma- 
jestic movements. The equality between these two forces 
being produced in the body of man, has always clipped the 
umbilical thread which connects the nervous with the spirit- 
ual system. In the body of every man there is continually, 
from the cradle to the grave, a struggle going on between 
these two belligerents. They are as interesting in their na- 
ture as the contemplation of any effect in physical science. 
These lie at the foundation of all the chemical changes that 
take place, either in the body of man or in the material 
world. To illustrate. Suppose we take a vessel of cold 
water. It is perfectly clear that the particles of that water 
are in a different condition from those of a vessel of water 
that is heated. If a ball be suspended in the first by a slen- 
der thread, it is perfectly clear that in the negative condition 
of the particles of water it will remain still. On the sub- 
jection of the vessel, then, to a proper amount of heat, it is 
clear that its particles of water undergo a change in propor- 
tion as it is thus heated, as a certain amount of its particles 
are put in positive action while the other remains in negative 
action. It will be noticed by this experiment that the ball 
thus suspended will move just exactly in proportion as the 
particles of water shall change from their original condition. 
Now, then, we see this ball taking the direction of those 
particles that are in positive action. Here it is evident that 
there is but one fluid, but the particles of that fluid, in conse- 
quence of the fire to which it is subjected, are in both posi- 
tive and negative action, or, if you please, in different condi- 



92 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

tions. These different conditions, as regards the water, pro- 
duce two dissimilar results, as much so as the experiment just 
now presented by the electro-magnet with the agency of the 
electrical fluid. 

If the question be asked, whether the fire has any thing to 
do with the motion of the ball in the vessel, no one would 
make a negative reply. If the question were asked, also, if 
in consequence of this motion there were two fluids, certainly 
no one would reply in the affirmative. 

Does not, then, the relation of the hot and cold water in 
the vessel present the unmistakable nature of the water as it 
now is ? Does its nature have any thing to do with the mo- 
tion of the ball 1 If it does, we ask if that nature is any 
thing more than the effects produced on the particles of the 
water in putting those particles in a dissimilar condition? 
Would the ball move without this dissimilar condition of the 
particles % If it would not, nature here means something in 
relation to the power which produces motion. 

Would it answer to say that when the action of the parti- 
cles correspond to the nature of the fire so that the hand can- 
not be held in it, then there is no cold water in the vessel 1 
What is it that prevents evaporation, if it is not those parti- 
cles that still remain in their original condition 1 

Now, then, suppose we take away the fire, do not the par- 
ticles, which before were in positive action, gradually resume 
their original condition, and an equality of forces ? And does 
not the motion of the ball cease just exactly in proportion as 
an equilibrium is established between the forces ? 

We do not intend to say that this very simple experiment 
presents the motion of all worlds in a more clear light, or that 
nature observes any other system in the production of her sub- 
lime and vast operations, but we present it with all its sim- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 93 

plicity, for the purpose of representing the relation of the 
spirit to the body, and the Almighty arm from which all na- 
ture absorbs, and that, too, continually, the flame of life. A 
man's spirit, then, bears the same relation to the finer and 
coarser fluids of his body that the fire does to the water in tho 
vessel. When the connecting link between the body and the 
spirit is severed, so that the body cannot absorb any influence 
from its spirit, motion in the body ceases, of necessity, be- 
cause the fire has gone out. Where this fire is, which before 
flushed the cheek of beauty, and presented such interesting, 
captivating, electrical sparklings of the eye, it is not our pur- 
pose here to say ; but one thing is certain, it has gone out of 
its earthly house 

That house, then, has nothing to protect it, and is speed- 
ily swallowed up and demolished. The external forces of na- 
ture then prevail, and we have the verification of that text of 
Scripture, which says, " Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou 
return," so far as man's visible existence is concerned. 

All this may be so, and truthfully sanctioned by the op- 
erations of nature ; but still the reader does not see how T it 
happens that this infinite nervous system of the world is in the 
condition of positive electro-reaction, in relation to which we 
here speak. 

It is important to know that condition, as it produces a 
corresponding state in the nervous system of man, by which a 
degree of susceptibility of his spiritual existence is had as re- 
gards the influence of impressions against the power of the 
will. Let us contrast, then, these finite operations of one- 
ness on the part of the will of the spirit of man, which is had 
in following the directions here given, with the relation which 
the God from whom all nature absorbs its vitality, bears to 
His universe ; and so far as a finite can be contrasted with an 



94 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

infinite operation, we are sure this point will be clear and in- 
telligible. 

Now, then, we say that the electrical fluid is a part of the 
universe, and that that fluid is one of the systems that com- 
pose it. It is the connecting link between the one visible and 
the other invisible, or, if you please, the one material and the 
other immaterial. 

The question, then, presents itself, is the electrical fluid, as 
a system, an independent one, or does it absorb an influence 
from any source vitally, save the one absorbed from God, 
through the agency of the spirit world? If it does, we 
have no more to say ; but if not, we pursue with pleasure the 
investigation. What is it, then, that constitutes the electro- 
reactive condition of the electrical fluid of the atmosphere ? 
We answer, that it is the oneness of action on the part of the 
infinite mind, on the part of that Being who continually makes 
His influence felt from the center to the circumference, and 
from the circumference to the center of this fluid. Then this 
fluid bears a susceptible influential relation to one source, and 
that source is the will of God. This oneness of action, then, 
on the part of His will, causes its positive electro-reactive 
condition. Separate the electrical fluid from this oneness of 
action, and who could even imagine an electro-reactive condi- 
tion of nature ? 

This electrical fluid, then, is in a state of susceptibility, 
so that in the nature of things it is compelled to absorb a 
controlling influence from one source alone ; whether that in- 
fluence is first absorbed by the spiritual and transferred to 
the electrical, and from thence to the material world, does 
not change the nature of things in the least degree, for it 
will be seen that it does absorb but one influence, and why 
that influence should produce two different actions in this 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 95 

particular, so that we have presented through its agency the 
centripetal and centrifugal forces, is a matter that needs not 
discussion. 

In the nature of things there is an influence exerted over 
the natural by the spiritual world through this electrical 
agency. But still we contend that it is all absorbed from 
God himself. And the operations of His arm, in making 
His influence felt throughout the mysterious ramifications of 
the electrical fluid of the universe, in the nature of things, 
manifests a susceptibility of that fluid which we can, at least, 
from analogy, understand. 

It is this unseen arm which has implanted in this fluid its 
coming and returning succession of disturbances or waves, 
w T ithin the operation of which we are compelled to look for 
the recuperative power of nature. It is apparent, therefore, 
that this fluid is one thing, and its reactive and susceptible 
condition another. Hence, if a man's nervous system, as 
regards reaction, is removed from the condition and suscep- 
tibility of the external electrical fluid, it follows, of necessity, 
♦that sleep alone w r ill not restore that condition, although 
the electrical power of his nervous system may be supplied 
by the natural passive condition of his will. From the pre- 
mises laid down, it will be impossible for it to assume, as it 
is thus received, the corresponding reactive condition of the 
relation of external forces, as the individual is a magnet by 
induction, and a peculiar relation of these forces constitute 
the reactive condition of his own being. 

Why will not the forces be changed, then, passively by 
sleep 1 We answer, that there is not a oneness of influence 
exerted on the part of the will upon the nervous system cor- 
responding to the oneness which the external nervous system, 
that thus supplies it continually, absorbs from the infinite 



96 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

mind. Then, you perceive, there is a vast difference between 
the relation of the nervous system and external elements 
during sleep, and when the mind permits the will to absorb 
only vitality enough to support one impression. Therefore, 
when an individual sits down and follows this infinite example 
in the mighty movement of the vast machinery of the uni- 
verse, which is unquestionably the cause of reaction, life, 
order, and beauty, it will follow, of necessity, that he having 
a finite nervous system, subjected thus to the positive influence 
of an infinite one, the corresponding reactive condition finitely 
must be had that exists in the elements, for cause, which are 
thus absorbed. We say, from the premises, and that, too, 
from the highest authority of the w T orks of God, that it 
would be impossible for any man who cannot so govern and 
control his will as to cause it to consume vitality enough to 
support but one impression, to ever obtain, on his part, from 
the electricity of the atmosphere, this high electro-reactive and 
recuperative condition of the nervous system. And we say, 
on the other hand, that it would be impossible for any man 
to resist that condition who thus, to the letter, follows this 
the greatest of all examples, the oneness of action on the 
part of his will. 

The reason, then, must be plain, why a man when asleep, 
when the will has departed from the conscious region, or 
positively laid itself down under the darkness of night, 
which reigns in the cerebrum, why the extra amount of 
electro-vitality which is received during sleep, does not main- 
tain the same reactive condition as when absorbed ; and why 
it is, when he follows these directions to the letter, that it 
does maintain its original condition, changing the relation of 
the forces of his nervous system, recuperatively and react- 
ively. Hence we say, that this has always been the source 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 07 

that has been primarily concerned in effecting all the mes- 
meric, magnetic, and psychological changes that have taken 
place in the nervous system, and this is the reason why pow- 
erful men, particularly if they happen to be the seventh or 
ninth son, supposed that they possessed an influence over the 
body of the subject which enabled them to exercise control 
over him. 

This appears to us to be the correct view of the matter ; 
if it is not, all its operations and effects are just as mysterious 
now as they were when first produced. But if we are un- 
derstood, as regards the causes which produce the electro- 
reactive condition of the vitality of the universe, and the 
action of the will upon the nervous system, and the relation 
which the nervous system bears to, and its capability of 
absorbing, conditionally, the electrical fluid of the atmos- 
phere, which presents the idea of the inductive vitality of 
human existence, we are quite sure that any legitimate ob- 
jection to the subject would be out of the question. 

Regard it as we may we are dependent beings, and however 
strong may be our innate power of recuperation, the changes 
that take place in the external forces produce correspond- 
ing changes in us. All the objections, therefore, on the part 
of those who may be skeptical, however scientific, will not 
change the adaptation of means to ends of the different sys- 
tems of man to those of nature ; but the extraneous expend- 
iture of vitality on the part of the will can greatly prevent 
their absorption, as well as a normal expenditure support a 
healthy connection between body and spirit. 

9 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

Philosopher** Stone—Power of the Will— Absorption, Extraneous Impressions, Will, 
and Vis-medicatrix Naturae — Philosophy of Sleep — Insanity the Reverse of the Pos- 
itive Electro-reactive State — Mosaic Account of Creation — Experiment in Vegetative 
Creation — Geologists answered. 

It is not our purpose to revive the alchemy of past ages, 
but to present the more sublime co-operative action of elec- 
tricity and mind. However skeptical we may be, and however 
mysterious their relations may appear, it is, nevertheless, 
true, that an unhealthy mental disposition of the vital agent 
to any one organ, either physical or mental, changes the na- 
ture of its secretions. Those secretions being changed, not 
only impart their peculiar disposition to our physical and 
mental being, but positively control them. The chemical 
change here effected in any one organ, especially presupposes 
an undue action on the part of the nervous system ; and who 
will deny, from the facts in the case, the dissolving power of 
the fluid within it, in effecting a perceptible change in our 
physical and mental faculties ? The action of the nervous 
system and reaction of the mind, properly understood and 
controlled, would, beyond all question, be the real " Kimai," 
or secret, in relation to which past ages gave us a physical 
hint, and in despair abandoned this interesting field of 
thought. 

The philosopher's stone was looked for in those days in 
the chemical action of matter upon matter. True, in the 
action of matter upon matter, we have a system of physical 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



chemistry, by which the physical organs ore not only supplied 
with their vitality but ofttimes destroyed. We have also in 
the action of the mind upon the electricity of the body a sys- 
tem of mental chemistry. In its reaction here we also have 
the vital support of each mental faculty, as well as the 
changes which take place in them. 

These are operations, as will be perceived, of a higher 
nature than those of matter upon matter. They are more 
awful in their effects, and present an unquestionable system 
of mental chemietry, showing the action of each mental fac- 
ulty through this agent, and the co-operative action of mind. 

We are not presenting this subject in the light of a uni- 
versal and unconditional solvent, nor the application of elec- 
tricity as an universal remedy for the pains and aches of 
man. We say, however, that the philosopher's stone can 
never be approached short of an extension of the will-power 
in the cerebellum or involuntary chamber. In other words, 
that it shall be taught how to increase or decrease at pleas- 
ure the reflex electrical discharges which take place in the 
region of our existence beyond consciousness, so as to in- 
crease the action of the heart and arteries. Then, and in 
that case, and in that case alone, the will of man has the 
power to prevent the absorption of extraneous impressions, 
physically and mentally, on the part of the mind, which is 
undoubtedly the cause of the world being now filled with so 
much physical and mental anguish. The conclusion forces 
itself upon us, that each faculty of the mind is only ma- 
terially developed by the reaction of the mind upon the elec- 
trical fluid of the nervous system. That reaction implies a 
property of mind, and therefore it is a mental phenomenon. 
The different conditions of electricity being dispensed by 
it* in changing the nature of the different secretions of the 



100 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

mental faculties, present in a light too plain to be misunder- 
stood, the foundation of the science to which we are feebly 
endeavoring to call attention. The different dipensations of 
electricity, thus by the reaction of the mind in effecting the 
different changes of the mental organs, embody all in an active 
sense, which we mean by the science of mental alchemy. 

As the reactions, then, are mental, and one faculty is oft- 
times robbed of its vital stimuli for the undue support of an- 
other, so that changes there do take place, we see no objec- 
tion to the propriety of the use of this term. In fact, it is 
the most appropriate term that can possibly be employed to 
express what the mind means in effecting these changes 
through the agency of the nervo-vitality. 

The subject is now, we hope, plain before us ; and if we 
have failed to make out its claims from the works of nature 
and of mind, it is not because her brightest operative move- 
ments have not given birth to this as the first-born of all sci- 
ences. 

After a close inspection of the premises, if our meaning 
should not be understood, we shall regret it exceedingly, but 
still contend that the thousands of experiments performed 
upon gentlemen of respectability and standing, warrant this 
conclusion ; and we again, in relation to this matter, repeat, 
with due deference to those who possess prejudices against 
that science alone which can teach men to subdue their will, 
and by that means control themselves, that if the philoso- 
pher's stone is ever to be inherited by the human family 
w T hile the spirit is in connection with the body, it must, in the 
nature of things, be an inheritance of the will. 

When the will, then, shall be properly taught from in- 
fancy to invade the involuntary powers, and increase the dis- 
charges from the brain to the circumference or body, in its 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 101 

protection of its physical system against internal and exter- 
nal extraneous influences ; and when it shall assume a higher 
prerogative, and stimulate actively the peculiar faculty of the 
brain, which the mind may want, and prevent, also, the ab- 
sorption of extraneous impressions which have a tendency to 
increase its specific gravity, then, and not till then, will any 
human being give any evidence of the fact that he is in pos- 
session of this great and invaluable heritage of nature. 

The philosopher's stone ! what is it % Suppose a man 
could, by an effort of his will, act positively upon his stom- 
ach, bowels, and kidneys, or any other organ to which he 
might direct his will, by its specific action upon the nervous 
system, as well as inflict pain upon any portion of his body, 
increase his physical recuperative powers — in fact, not per- 
mit the mental absorption of any impression that would have 
a tendency to negative his higher faculties, how far would 
this be from the possession of that invaluable desideratum? 

There are men, even now, who can accomplish this result. 
Their will, from the positive electro-reactive condition of 
their nervous system, has been taught to invade the involun- 
tary chamber, so that they can increase the discharges from 
the brain to the stomach, cause its muscles to relax and con- 
tract so that the extraneous matter can be ejected without 
the use of drugs. The same as regards the bowels, the kid- 
neys, and the respiratory action of the surface, but not to the 
extent and perfection that it would have been had they, in the 
first instance, inherited this high electro-reactive condition 
from their parents, and been taught the exercise of the will 
from their infancy. 

It is, beyond a doubt, as true as man's existence, that the 
great family of man is, in a physical sense, isolated from 
that reactive and controllable condition of the nervous sys 



102 M E N T A L A L C II E M i . 

tern of which our original parents were possessed. Their 
sleep "was more quiescent than ours ; their constitutions were 
stronger. Their will possessed the power to say to extra- 
neous impressions, You shall not be absorbed by the mind 
so as to cause me to participate of your nature. What has 
produced this physical isolation ? We answer, that the un- 
necessary retention of the will, in the support of a multitude 
of impressions, has done it more than any thing else. 

When we properly reflect upon the great principles of hu- 
man existence, we find that this condition of things causes 
more disease than any one thing in the great category of ex- 
traneous agents. Why do the recuperative powers steal the 
time when one is asleep to throw out the impurities of the 
body ; and if the body has received a mechanical injury, to 
bring nerve to nerve, and blood-vessel to blood-vessel ? Why 
may not this remedial result be accomplished while the will is 
active % We answer, that the recuperative powers want the 
very agent which the will is absorbing, to appropriate to this 
purpose, and to increase the respiratory action of the sur- 
face. To illustrate this, which we think is a very important 
principle in physiology, suppose the momentum of the vital 
force of the nervous system be one hundred per cent., it is 
plain that the will, while it is in action, absorbs a certain 
amount of the one hundred per cent. 

Suppose, then, the will absorbs twenty per cent., it will 
be perceived that the region beyond consciousness, where 
the recuperative powers mysteriously dwell, has not the same 
amount of vitality to clean out the castle and repair it, that it 
has when the will is passive. While the will is active, it is 
plain that there cannot be, according to this supposition, 
which is nearly a mathematical certainty, more than eighty 
per cent, in the possession of the region beyond conscious- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 103 



ness. The vitality of the nervous system cannot, in the na- 
ture of things, be appropriated to two purposes simulta- 
neously ; therefore, if the finger of a man be cut off, and the 
will ceases not its action, the wound will never heal ; but as 
soon as the will surrenders into the hands of the recuperative 
force the amount of vitality which it is absorbing for volun- 
tary purposes, then nature goes to work and performs well 
her task, because the momentum of vitality beyond conscious- 
ness is increased. The external elements become attracted 
to the body from the healthy respiratory condition of the sur- 
face, as will be perceived by the flexible feel of the skin in all 
cases where the will is thus passive. 

This is the condition of the system where the old particles 
are being thrown off, and new and fresh ones from the atmos- 
phere absorbed and appropriated in their stead. Who is 
there, then, who does not see that for physical purposes even, 
the great desideratum cf human life is to endeavor to break 
down this wall, which our parents have unquestionably be- 
queathed us, between the will and the mind ? 

How often have you seen it that the mind has petitioned 
the will to cease its absorption of vitality, and it would not 1 
How often has the patient said, " Doctor, I cannot sleep." 
They meant that the will continues still to rob their recupe- 
rative powers of the vitality which would, according to the 
doctrine of physical absorption, enable the external elements 
to assist in restoring the diseased body. Sleep, then, simply 
implies the passive relation of the will to the mind ; that is, 
that thus the highest property of the spirit ceases for a time 
its action, by which a latent condition of the cerebrum is pro- 
duced. It ceases its action for the express purpose of giving 
up the agent, by which it manifested voluntary results, into 
the hands of the recuperative powers. This, then, is another 



104 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



property of mind, and seems, in a measure, at least, to make 
changes and exchanges of vitality with the will-force. 

Now, then, let us ask'the question no longer, why does na- 
ture heal our diseases w r hen w T e are asleep, and why is sleep 
essential to our physical and mental health 1 Look at a man 
with not a thought in his voluntary chamber, and one who is 
dreaming and turning over the business transactions of the 
next day, and considering how he shall accomplish this or 
that, and perhaps how he shall take advantage of his neigh- 
bor or friend, and you see in this case, contrasting it with the 
other, one of the many cases which produce the negative re- 
active condition of the nervous system. 

This, in connection with physical abuses that have a tend- 
ency to strengthen this wall between the will and the mind, 
is, at least, an important consideration in reference to the 
causes which are mysteriously at work producing, physically, 
a degeneration of the human race. Therefore, the individual 
who gives way to his will in the first instance, and suffers its 
positive retention, when the recuperative powers ought to be 
at work, should particularly remember, that there is no one 
cause calculated to shorten his days equal to this. There is 
no one cause better calculated than this to impart a feeble 
physical condition to his offspring. Remember, oh ! the w T ill 
of man, remember, that thou owest a debt to the recupera- 
tive powers. If thou payest it not, whether thou knowest it 
or not, thou wilt cause it, in a measure, at least, to weaken 
the fine thread which holds the spirit to the body. By thy 
continued action, in not regularly responding to it, which 
seems to regularly reach over for thy vitality, thou wilt 
render this thread more and more brittle, and become the 
prime cause of all the mind suffers, and ultimately be the 
means of taking the life of the body. 



MENTAL ALCHEM Y. 105 

The reader may wonder what we mean, and as we have no 
other medium of conversing with him, we beg respectfully 
leave to say, we mean exactly what we have recorded. If he 
says the will and the mind are all the same, we plainly ac- 
knowledge that we cannot understand his meaning. We 
know that the will is commanded and controlled, and seems 
to fill the office of executive volition of the mental and phys- 
ical chamber. There is a something which commands it. 
There is a something, which in the condition of our nature 
permits it to absorb vitality enough to move the body from 
place to place, and to make known to the world, in a meas- 
ure, at least, the intellectuality of man, which is absorbed 
and retained in the region of his existence beyond conscious- 
ness. The reader must, on reflection, see that a man's in- 
tellect is not the result of his will. It is not the result of 
that department of his existence over which consciousness 
seems to preside. The impressions which constitute his in- 
tellect are absorbed in the region beyond consciousness, 
while the will, together with the other faculties spread out 
in the voluntary domain, are permitted to absorb the intel- 
lectuality of tlie living spirit. In the relaxation and con- 
traction, therefore, of the muscles of the throat, we have a 
demonstration of its power of intellectual absorption. If a 
man's intellect be the result of his will, the whole human 
family make a great mistake in not becoming Solomons. 
Does the will have any thing to do with the capability of a 
mind to absorb impressions which nay ultimately make a 
great man, otherwise than to carry him where he may be 
subjected to their absorption, and to increase his desire for 
their constant reception? If it does, we should like very 
much, indeed, to know in what instance. 

The will, then, is controlled; and a thing controlled im- 



106 MENTAL AICHEMY. 

plies a higher power by which it is controlled. It is true, the 
will ma}' become so accustomed to refusing to cease its action, 
as before presented, that the mind cannot render it quies- 
cent at all times when it may desire to do so; but then, at 
the same time, it is perfectly clear that the mind can com- 
mand it when there is physical strength enough to move the 
body. 

Can the will-power manifest its specific influence upon any 
portion of the body unless that portion bears a healthy rela- 
tionship to the involuntary chamber 1 If there are not con- 
tinual reflex discharges coming from the brain to the hand, 
can the will raise the hand 1 If any thing is presented, the 
impression or emanation of which the mind has never before 
absorbed, or any thing by which the faculty of comparison 
can contrast it, can the will tell you what it is 1 If it can- 
not, then we say, both in a physical and mental sense, that 
the will has no power save that which is absorbed from the 
living spirit. Hence we perceive the separate action of the 
mind and of the will. A careful inspection of the operations 
of the two will render this clear and distinct. Without this 
clearness of understanding, it would be impossible to compre- 
hend the reason why an individual, when his nervous system 
is in a state of positive electro-reaction, is controlled by the 
impressions of the operator. With what does the operator 
have to contend ? It is the will. Why is that will capable 
of offering resistance. Because it absorbs a certain amount 
of the subject's vitality. Do not impressions absorb his vi- 
tality also? If, then, the condition of his nervous system is 
such that an impression goes to the mind, positively absorbing 
more of the vitality of the nervous system than the will ab- 
sorbs, it will follow, of necessity, that the actions of the sub- 
ject will be compelled to participate of the nature of the im- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 107 



pressions of the operator, the resistance of the will notwith- 
standing. 

Here, then, is the secret of the whole matter, in a theo- 
retical sense. To speak about impressions not exercis- 
ing a positive control over a subject against the will-force, 
would be to say that the mind is incapable of the absorption 
of impressions, or, if it does absorb them, that they are inca- 
pable of exercising any control over him, or to say that a 
man's will has the full and complete control over the whole 
momentum of his nervo-vitality. 

Whether scientific men, according to the common accepta- 
tion of the term, will sanction these great practical and theo- 
retical truths of nature, matters not ; one thing is decidedly 
certain, that the intelligence of the world combined could not 
change in the least degree this condition of things. This 
electro-reactive condition of the nervous system was unques- 
tionably the condition that our first parents inherited from the 
bosom of nature. And instead of this condition — as men who 
are ignorant of the action of mind and the nervous system, 
would have the world to believe — being the condition that 
causes persons to become insane and diseased, it is exactly 
the reverse. You may go to all the asylums now in exist- 
ence, and you can find no subject there whose nervous sys- 
tem is in a state of positive electro-reaction. 

You may understand the science, and go into the hospitals 
where thousands are tortured with pain and disease, and you 
will find them not in this positive electro-reactive condition, 
but universally in the negative condition. All the persons 
that we have ever seen who were naturally in the reactive 
state, by which their minds could, without any sitting what- 
ever, be compelled to absorb impressions positively against 
the power of the will, enjoyed the finest health, and presented 



108 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

a recuperative condition of their physical nature, in relation 
to which they had occasion to be proud. 

We here make the record, and call upon the world to dis- 
prove it — and physicians particularly — and ask the question, 
why do they desire to frighten the community by saying that 
the positive influence of the electricity of the atmosphere is 
capable of producing that condition of the nervous system 
which leads to insanity. Go to your asylums, and the nega- 
tive condition of the nervous system of the insane speaks vol- 
umes in relation to this matter. Go to the man afflicted with 
chronic rheumatism ; go to the patient who is nearly gone 
with tubercular 'tisis ; yea, go to diseased nature, anywhere, 
and see if this positive electro-reactive condition is at the 
foundation of it. 

In conclusion, consult, properly, the physical electro-reac- 
tive trinity of the nervous system, and you will no longer 
kick against the positive dominion of the prime reactive in- 
fluence of the atmosphere, by positive alchemistic absorption, 
in producing its corresponding condition of our physical na- 
ture. Let us in an especial consideration examine what na- 
ture means by extraneous actions or disturbances on the part 
of the nervous system. 

It will be perceived, from the make of all persons, that this 
system is obliged to be subject to unhealthy as well as healthy 
impressions, physical and mental, wherever the body may be. 
If a man swallows poison, it disturbs the healthy circulation, 
and occasions an extraneous succession of waves to reach the 
mind. If the mind does not respond, with a sufficient amount 
of recuperative aid, the poison is not ejected ; the physical 
system absorbs it, and then partakes of its nature. This is 
also the case with impure atmosphere, impure food, and every 
*hing else to which our physical nature is subject. It will be, 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. { 109 

moreover, perceived, that if the mind does not quickly re- 
spond to the demands of its physical nature, there will be an 
unhealthy or undue consumption of the vital principle by the 
action of the poison. In despite of the will, the mind will 
experience the most violent pain and anguish, and produce 
electrical discharges to such an extent that they, too, may as- 
sist in the destruction and death of the body. It will here 
be noticed that a complete change in the physical man is ap- 
parent, as well as the ability of the physical organs to per- 
form their proper functions. The whole system seems to 
surrender its vital stimulus to its presence. 

Is this all clear in relation to the physical man ? If so, 
we are ready to notice the influences of the extraneous action 
of the nervous system upon his mental being. It is clear 
that before the mind can hear, see, taste, smell, or feel, a 
disturbance must take place in the nervous fluid. There- 
fore, in view of this, every word that is spoken occasions its 
own specific atmospheric undulations, and these undulations 
produce their specific disturbances of the auditory nerve by 
their tympanitic vibrations. The emanations from different 
objects produce their specific disturbances of the eye and op- 
tic nerve before the mind is enabled to see. Can the mind 
see an object before the emanation or impression from it is 
absorbed 1 Can the mind hear before the impressions made 
by the atmospheric undulations are absorbed ? What, then, 
are impure impressions, in this sense? We answer, that 
they are the atmospheric undulations and emanations caused 
by the presence of those who mentally are continually bend- 
ing to the unhealthy secretions of combativeness, destructive- 
ness, secretiveness, etc. Good impressions are those which 
come from others who live under the influence of the facul- 
ties that belong to their higher nature, as benevolence, ven- 

10 



110 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

eration, conscientiousness, etc. Remember that like goes to 
like. If a young man, whose higher nature is moistened by 
the secretions of the latter, be subjected to impressions com- 
ing from the former, and they are negatively received, his 
mental nature remains the same, and his character will not 
participate of their nature. 

But, on the other hand, if they are positively absorbed by 
his mind, that absorption presupposes an application of his 
vitality to their support. Hence the vitality will go to the 
development of the corresponding faculty in his brain, caus- 
ing his character and actions to participate of their nature. 
When this is the case, we see a perceptible change in his 
disposition, because the mind, from the circumstances of the 
case in the first instance, absorbs the impressions, and takes 
away from the higher faculties of his existence their vitality 
for the support of the lower. This is the condition of things 
which we say increases the specific gravity of the mind, and 
it may become greater and greater, until at last, in its own 
estimation, it fails down, as it were, on a level with the ani- 
mals. This is the reason why the mind becomes insensible to 
the high feelings and impressions of a man. 

Are we understood 1 If we are, this example shows us the 
relation which the mind bears to impressions, and the influ- 
ence which they exert in the changes of our mental being ; 
and if it stopped at a mere change, it would not be so awful to 
contemplate ; but the destruction of some of those mental 
faculties, which lift man above all other created beings, may 
follow. 

Have you never known the extraneous forces of nature, 
apparently without cause, to occasion the impression of our 
Saviour to be positively absorbed by a finite being, so that 
his mind, as far as it was capable, made efforts to partici- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. Ill 

pate of His nature? If you have not, go to the asylums for 
the insane — see for } r ourself, in more particulars than this, 
and with wonder and pity behold their effects, by which they 
seem for a time to hold empire over every faculty of human 
existence ; there your doubts will pass away, and nature her- 
self will present her own testimony in support of the extra- 
neous part of mental alchemy, and tell you that this condi- 
tion of things, mentally, is owing to an extreme negative 
electro-reactive state of the nervous system. 

Friends may weep over this lamentable state of their 
friends. They may endeavor to make the happiest impres- 
sions on the minds of those that are thus unfortunate, but 
still they heed them not, on account of the extreme negative 
condition of the system which conveys impressions to the 
mind. This state of things, which has fallen upon the world 
for cause, is too awful to contemplate, and it behooves us, 
particularly, to respectfully bow to the powers that be, and 
no longer subscribe to the doctrine, that man possesses the 
powder to generate his own vitality ; that his brain is a gal- 
vanic battery, which becomes a magnet of itself, but that all 
his vitality is absorbed from nature, and hence that it is in- 
ductive. Then the brain, if it be a magnet, only becomes 
so by induction. This inductive vitality, of which we see 
men possessed, speaks a language, in relation to physical ab- 
sorption, which none can resist, even if the doctrine of men- 
tal absorption, which we have endeavored to present, should 
be looked upon as erroneous. 

Let us more accurately investigate the operations above, 
below, and around us, in connection with those in the phys- 
ical and mental chamber of man, which seem to lead to the 
conclusion, that as the electricity of the nervous system is 
appropriated, either physically or mentally, so will the incli- 



112 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

nation of the body and mind be. If this is not so, then we 
should be at a great loss to know what is meant by the ex- 
pression, " There are more things in heaven and earth, 
Horatio, than are dreamed of in thy philosophy. 55 

The science of mental alchemy, in a practical sense, as 
all who have attended our lectures for the last eighteen 
months know, differs from electro-phsychology, thusology, 
biology, magnetism, and mesmerism. The manner of pro- 
ducing the condition of the nervous system, by which one in- 
dividual may occasion the mind of another, in a natural state, 
to respond to his impressions against the power of the will, 
is entirely different from any process before laid down. 

While gentlemen in the audience are producing this elec- 
tro-reactive change of the nervous system by the absorption 
of atmospherical electricity, conversation, and even the loud- 
est noise on the part of the audience, will not retard it, as 
has been over and over demonstrated, if they will follow the 
alchemistic directions. They are given no zinc nor copper- 
plate to look at as a medium, nor requested to concentrate 
their minds mechanically on any object. Their bodies are 
not subjected positively to the nervous fluid of any man ; the 
downward and upward passes are not made. The experi- 
ments are performed without gazing them in the eye, without 
the pretension of any supernatural agency whatever in the 
production of the multitude of astonishing phenomena which 
have been presented in a course of one hundred and fifty 
lectures and experiments, upon more than a thousand gentle- 
men, in a natural state, during the past winter and spring, 
in Brooklyn and New York. When we take into consider- 
ation, that all the lecturers on what is supposed to be this 
subject, both in this country and throughout the world, have 
always demanded, on the part of the audience, the most pro- 



MENTAL ALOHEMSi. 113 



found silence, or the}' could not mesmerize, psychologize, or 
biologize, the difference between this science practically and 
all others that have a name in this direction, is plainly seen. 

Twice as many in the audience, under the circumstances, 
produce this electrical change upon themselves^ as by any 
other process or plan made public. These facts being cer- 
tain, places this subject, beyond a reasonable doubt, above 
suspicion. It is armed with power sufficient to understand- 
ingly and attractively reach the minds of the mest skeptical, 
and demands nothing that is in the least degree repulsive to 
the most scientific. 

We will not here mention the efficacy of the healing vir- 
tues, but will ask, to its limits who can set bounds? There 
cannot be in the wide domain of intellectual culture a theme 
on which the mind can dwell with as pure delight as upon its 
own electro-reactive movements. By these movements, to 
produce the voluntary and involuntary relaxation and con- 
traction of the muscles, and with a still higher reaction in its 
finite electrical ocean, sparkle forth corresponding flames of 
true patriotism in the bosom of others. The philosopher may 
labor to impress his mind w r ith the nicest astronomical move- 
ments, in relation to distant worlds, and while his reflective 
powers are thus spread out over the starry crown of Jehovah, 
he may even fall in love with the order and harmony that 
there prevail, and, while absorbed in the relation of cause and 
effect, venture to speculate on the mysterious nebulae of La 
Place and Herschel ; but this fails to call into play the reac- 
tion of his high innate mental power, as they are seen only in 
those that cluster around the investigation of mind itself and 
its nervo-vital radiations. Hence the great science of mind, 
standing as it does above, and authoritatively waving its elec- 
trical arm supremely over organized matter, presents to view 



114 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

the first-born of all sciences ; and, as such, its alchemistic 
movements as far transcend all others as mind transcends 
matter. How pleasing the idea that we are legitimately the 
children of nature, and how heart-rending it is to think of the 
manner in which we have violated her laws ! The iron and 
water that compose our bodies correspond to the same sub- 
stances as they exist in nature, or in the material world. 
The atmosphere and gases which we consume come from na- 
ture ; the action of the nervous system participates of the 
character of the lightning's flash, which not only surrounds 
the mind itself, but is continually coursing the vibrating cords 
of the nervous system, or, in other words, as poetically ex- 
pressed : 

" Comes like a giant for the race, 

Its Orient flame ascends, 
Soars thro' the boundless realms of space, 

And in the man descends. 
Its light the vital lamp bestows. 

The universe pervades, 
In ocean's darkest caverns glows, 

And earth's profcundest shades." 

After all, we are sensible that men who take a different 
view in relation to mind, may fall back upon the prejudices 
i F physical science, and answer that we have no authority for 
the deductions we have made concerning it. As the science 
\f geology makes the Mosaic account of creation literally un- 
tenable, and as the globe is millions of years old, according 
to geological testimony, it is more than probable that some 
long-continued distitlating process, inherent in matter, is at 
the foundation of this something, which you call mind or 
spirit. 

We have no desire whatever to dispute with those who are 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 115 

learned in the different stratas of the globe, and have satisfied 
themselves upon this point that the progression of science has 
made the Mosaic account, taken in its literal acceptation, 
altogether untenable- We have a right to say, that we have 
yet to learn the first discovery in any of the sciences which, 
in the established order of creation, forbids the condensation 
of the globe, and its special creation, as found in the Mosaic 
record. 

The globe, when put in the scale of finite deductions, may, 
in that sense, be millions of years old, as it looks to be so ; 
and the argument may apparently become stronger by an ap- 
peal to the gradual condensation of the fluids and solids which 
now takes place. These circumstances, say they, forbid it 
otherwise. This, however, we think, does not disprove, in 
the nature of scientific discoveries,, the record of Moses. Let 
us for one moment examine one of the most pointed discover- 
ies which applies to the case under consideration, as it now 
stands on the pages of science, as regards vegetative creation. 
Learned gentlemen have recorded it, and any man who wishes 
it may try the experiment. 

" Take a small quantity of mustard or cress seed, and 
steep it for a few days in diluted oxymuriatic acid, then sow 
it in a light soil in garden pots, and cover them with metallic 
covers. Now bring them in contact with the prime conductor 
of an electrical machine. The seed will spring up, as if by 
magic, and in the course of a few minutes he will have a crop 
ready to cut." 

We are here told by the gentlemen who believe that the 
globe is millions of years old, that the experimenter will have 
a salad in a few minutes ready to be put upon the table. Is 
this not an instantaneous creation by finite wisdom and 
power through electrical agency? Let us look at this. 



116 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



Suppose the experimenter, then, places this salad upon his 
table, and a friend of his should come in and say, this is 
very nice salad, and it looks as though it grew in a fertile 
soil. In reply, the experimenter says,. it is but a few minutes 
old. We can well imagine the astonishment of his friend, 
and the skepticism which would be depicted in his counte- 
nance. The natural remark of the incredulous man would be, 
I know you are mistaken, as from its looks it must be two or 
three months old, and I cannot believe your assertion, as it 
is contrary to nature in every particular. The experimenter 
would, undoubtedly, laugh at the skepticism and the learned 
remark of his friend against the reality of this specimen of 
finite electrical creation. Is it not passing strange, that 
those who say they have performed this experiment them- 
selves, without looking to see its force, set aside the account 
of the creation, as given by Moses, as wholly untenable 1 If 
a human being can thus suddenly convert a seed into a plant 
by his wisdom and skill through electrical agency, why could 
not the Infinite Mind as suddenly condense the globe and its 
special creations in the first instance, as recorded by Moses? 
This is a case in point, derived from the lights afforded us 
by the progression of science ; and this as well as many 
other experiments prove, at least, by analogy, that the an- 
cient record is true. The looks of the globe, therefore, with 
the solidity of its stratas, do not prove its existence millions 
of years ago, any more than the plant and its firmness of 
texture proves that it must have been the growth of months. 
How can we be made to believe, therefore, that the develop- 
ments of science as yet stand at all in the way of the creation 
of the world in six days, if we comparatively admit the virtue 
of the infinite creative energy, and that there is a God, from 
whose almighty fiat worlds and systems of worlds are being 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 117 

continually moved into existence ? Neither the giant arm of 
science, nor the speculative philosophy of men, can take from 
man his primary immortality, nor destructively reach his 
spirit within the deep-heaving bosom of despairing love, nor 
take it from behind the liquid sparklings of the eye. 

" The sun is but a spark of fire, 
A transient meteor in the sky ; 
The soul, immortal as its sire, 
Can never die." 

I The mortal existence of man is, therefore, but a portion 
of the universal process. With the express command to 
press forward, avoiding the reception of all extraneous im- 
pressions, that he may escape the violent reaction that would 
be sure to follow. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Alchemistic Control— The Reason of that Control— Intelligence, the Result of Electrical 
Agency — One System more Reactive than Another — Succession of Electrical Disturb- 
ances — Physical Trinity of the Nervous System— -How to Ascertain that Trinity — How 
to Change its Reactivity — Will of God — Oneness of Action of the Will in Producing 
Reactive Changes — How to Experiment Properly — Influences not Supernatural — Re- 
quest to Physicians and Skeptics — Cannot Square-rule the Nervous System as it now 
is — The Reason Why. 

We now propose a practical lesson on the subject of men- 
tal alchemy, by which unmistakable experiments may be per- 
formed, proving, as we believe, the theory advanced to be 
true. In entering this beautiful field of practical culture, 
we wish it remembered, that we only speak of our own ex- 
perience, and the manner by which we have been enabled to 
exercise control positively over subjects, which has led us to 
believe in the reality of the effects upon the minds of others 
by certain conditions of the nervous system. The nervo-vital 
fluid seems to play an authoritative part between the mind 
and the body. The body moves not without its special 
agency. The secretions of none of its organs can take place 
without its positive presence. Every function, then, per- 
formed by the animal economy, presupposes its existence. 
The mind receives all its impressions from the external 
world, and responds to the external world only by this agency. 
When we pursue its office in the great economy of human 
existence farther, we need not be amazed to find that every 
impression which the mind receives, from the cradle to the 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 119 

grave, presupposes its positive agency. In other words, the 
intellect of man, which is retained in his chamber beyond 
consciousness, owes its retention to a normal relation of the 
forces of this system. All the different faculties of the brain 
pour out their secretions through its special agency. With- 
out it, then, as it thus unquestionably surrounds the spirit 
itself, the mind could not reabsorb an impression in a mental 
sense. And even that implies a reaction of the mind, and 
produces a certain disturbance in the rounds of its circula- 
tion. If this be so, the authority of this system is clear and 
unquestionable in the great office of human existence. 

This fluid develops two influences in the rounds of its cir- 
culation, just exactly in proportion as its motion may be. 
The fire which kindles it into a flame is the mind. Hence 
its presence gi-/es motion to the fluid within the nervous sys- 
tem, by which the attractive and repulsive powers therein are 
manifested, and by which they hold under subjection the re- 
lations and conditions of the arterial and venous blood. As 
no man can live without both arterial and venous blood in his 
circulating system, so no man can live without positive and 
negative electricity within his nervous system. A certain 
relation of these two forces constitute the nervo-vital idio- 
syncrasy of a man. That relation being different in different 
persons, gives us reason to say that the bodies of persons are 
in a different electro-reactive condition, or dissimilarly elec- 
trified. What is it that naturally presents itself here that 
occasions one nervous system to be more reactive than an- 
other ? Is it not a certain relation of these two forces 1 
These two forces constitute his nature. Do these two forces 
bear the same relation to each other when the mind is ab- 
sorbing the impression of fear as they do when it is absorb- 
ing that of joy ? If so, we are greatly mistaken in our de- 



120 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

ductions as regards the nervous system. We speak 'thus 
pointedly concerning this system because it is the one which 
has, in the first instance, every thing to do with the experi- 
ments that we expect to present. Its authority upon man's 
physical and mental nature now being plain, and the relation 
of the two forces constituting his peculiar nervo-vital idiosyn- 
crasy, we would state that we do not know what gentlemen 
mean — speaking in a natural sense — when they say that one 
man is negatively electrified, and another is positively elec- 
trified, merely because one controls the other against his 
will. We here repeat the question, how is it possible for a 
man to be naturally negatively charged with electricity, and 
live, or positively charged, and live? As well might a man 
say that the globe would continue its motion without the in- 
fluence of the positive and negative powers of nature, or un- 
der the influence of one of these powers separated from the 
other. Therefore, we shall take nature at her word, so far 
as we are able in presenting our philosophy of this subject, 
regardless of the scorn and contempt that those who cling to 
books, without thinking for themselves, may endeavor to heap 
upon*us. 

We have said that a certain relation of these forces in the 
nervous system, is its different electro-reactive conditions. 

The manner, then, of ascertaining its different reactive 
conditions, will of necessity be the next point for our consid- 
eration. 

In order to make ourselves understood, we will, for inspec- 
tion, present before the reader the physical electro-reactive 
trinity of the nervous system. By this term, we shall com- 
prehend all the conditions in the family of man. The ex- 
tent to which the system will react cannot, of course, be as- 
certained unless it is disturbed, and, by means of such dis- 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 121 

turbance, we expect to make ourselves understood, from the 
symptoms that may be presented in relation to this matter. 
The nerves of this system are minutely ramified upon the ex- 
ternal surface. Wherever they are in a subject that is 
healthy, we naturally suppose the presence of the nervo-vital 
fluid. If this be true, it will be easy to perceive that me- 
chanical pressure made upon any portion of the body, must 
involve the particles of that fluid. From the point w^here 
they are thus involved, a succession of waves will pass to the 
brain, and the mind will respond with a reflex succession of 
waves to the point thus involved, and feeling will be the 
result. 

All subjects, then, whatever may be the relation and con- 
dition of the forces of the nervous system, will feel the pres- 
sure thus made upon any portion of the body. This feeling 
would, of course, be a symptom accompanying the pressure. 

Now, then, suppose we take hold of the right hand of A, 
as the most convenient point, and make pressure just above 
the third joint of the ring finger ; we involve, mechanically, a 
large thread of nerves which come from the spine, and through 
the spine are connected with the brain. It is evident that, 
on making the pressure, a succession of disturbances passes 
through the nervous system to the brain. 

It is evident that these disturbances pass in regular succes- 
sion, or waves, whether A feels them or not, as they pass 
thus to the brain. Now, then, if his mind does not feel them, 
as they pass thus to the brain, and no other response is had 
except that of feeling, then we say that A's nervous system, 
and the relation of the forces, is in a state of negative electro- 
reaction. Now if we take hold of the hand of B, and make 
pressure in the same way, and his mind responds and ac- 
knowledges the succession of disturbances to the spine, as 

11 



122 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



well as feeling at the point involved, nothing can be more 
plain than that there is a difference in the reactive condition 
of the nervous system of A and B. The symptoms are dif- 
ferent ; the one acknowledges nothing but feeling, the other 
the feeling with the succession of waves as they pass on to 
the spine. 

Now, then, in contra-distinction to the condition of A, we 
say that B's nervous system is in a state of physical or in- 
stinctive electro-reaction. We next in turn take hold of the 
hand of C in the same manner, and make use of the same 
mechanical pressure, and his mind responds with its sense of 
feeling in the acknowledgment of the succession of disturb- 
ances to the brain and all over the nervous system, as well as 
the feeling responded to in the other cases. The symptoms in 
this case are certainly different from those of the other two, 
as his mind has felt the succession of disturbances not only 
to the brain, but throughout the minute ramifications of his 
nervous system. Without experiment, then, this would mean 
nothing ; but this is the exact rule that nature has establish- 
ed in the nervous system of man, showing the extent to which 
the mind will be permitted, through its agency, to respond in 
the control of its physical and mental being to an impression 
properly made against the power of its will. The acknowl- 
edgment of this succession of waves is not in the least de- 
gree whatever referable to the imagination or belief, but it is 
a certain action that takes place, from the condition of the 
two forces in the nervous system or the nature of man. This 
is the electro-reactive trinity of the nervous system, and the 
key by which we unlock the door that will lead us understand- 
ing^ into the great chamber of man, where impressions are 
absorbed and retained. These different effects that we have 
now spoken of, manifest themselves in different persons as 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 123 

they naturally are ; and no man who will make this applica- 
tion, which is easy and simple, will be any longer skeptical as 
regards this trinity of the nervous system. If a man, then, 
feels the disturbances pass to the spine, the operator can ob- 
tain successfully a physical absorption of his impressions, so 
that they will control the physical action of the subject 
against the power of his will. But he cannot obtain a mental 
absorption, for the reasoi. that the sense of feeling has not 
acknowledged the presence of the succession of disturbances 
in the brain itself. Henee it will be perceived that he will 
have no authority from the nervous system to expect a mental 
absorption of his impressions exercising the least control over 
the subject's mental nature. But, if the sense of feeling ac- 
knowledges these disturbances to the brain itself, and all over 
the nervous system, if the operator makes the impressions 
correctly, it would be contrary to nature if he did not obtain 
a successful absorption of his impressions and the mental 
control of the subject against the power of his will. This is 
what we will call speaking to the mind from the positive 
authority of the nervous system, because the succession of 
disturbances, occasioned by the operator, has been acknowl- 
edged by the sense of feeling in the very chamber where all 
his impressions are obtained, in the chamber w T here all exter- 
nal objects are seen and analyzed. 

If a man, then, should expect to get either a physical or 
mental absorption of his impressions of a subject where hig 
pressure produced no other symptoms than feeling, he would 
expect a result contrary to nature. If he did, it would be an 
effect that we have never been abl& to obtain. This has been 
the unalterable rule that has governed us in our experiments. 
Whenever a subject feels the disturbances to the spine, we 
expect, by pursuing the following course, to get a physical 



124 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

absorption of our impressions, without any effort of our will, 
sufficient to exercise physical control over his physical action 
against the power of his will. It would be nonsense, with 
this condition of the nervous system, to expect to exercise 
mental control over the subject. 

Now the matter is plain before us, and if this electro-re- 
active trinity of the nervous system, as it naturally exists in 
the bodies of men, can be set aside, we say, then, that any 
man would be a humbug who would attempt to demonstrate 
this science before the public. He would have no authority 
from nature, and not having that authority, he would certainly 
be beating about upon the tumultuous ocean of conjecture, 
not knowing where he was or what he was about. 

The reader will doubtless be somewhat astonished at the 
idea here presented, that some persons are naturally in this 
positive electro-reactive condition, as we were when we» first 
discovered it ; and we will remark candidly, for his informa- 
tion, that we never found any person in that condition who 
at once acknowledged the succession of waves that we have 
described, but what they enjoyed the finest health. What is 
remarkable, furthermore, is, that we have never seen a hu- 
man being who was diseased or insane who was in this high- 
est electro-reactive condition. Still, men who talk learnedly 
on a subject that they might understand, would have the 
world believe that this is the condition that makes men in- 
sane, and causes them to become diseased. Nature, how- 
ever, tells them they know not what they say ; and this being 
the case, its advocates should charitably forgive them. 

The next inquiry which seems to present itself is, how 
shall A manage to get his nervous system in the same condi- 
tion as that of B and C, and to what agency shall he make 
an appeal, and how is that appeal to be made by which the 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 125 

reactive change is effected? These are questions, the an- 
swers to which involve more philosophy than we are enabled 
to digest ; but we will give such deductions and reasons as 
satisfy us beyond all question as regards this matter. We 
say, then, the appeal must be made to the electro-reactive 
condition of the atmosphere, as the only source upon which 
hope can rest for a successful change. The puny arm of 
man, with his small amount of vitality, is a source inade- 
quate to perform this wonderful change. What power, then, 
of my being shall I direct to make application to the ele- 
ments of the atmosphere for this change ? We say it is the 
will-power, and that the will has got to comply with the con- 
dition of things, as stated in a preceding chapter, which 
causes the electro-reactive trinity of the elements of the at- 
mosphere, or it never can be effected. This electrical fluid 
is within the body of the atmosphere which is around us, 
above us, and below us, and it is absorbed upon the princi- 
ples before laid down. In order to be understood as regards 
this very interesting point, let us present two persons before 
the reader, both alike thirsting for water, the reason of that 
thirst being a deficiency of that fluid in the body. Let these' 
two persons walk into a pool of water on a summer's day up 
to their shoulders, and remain there for half an hour. Let 
one continue in positive action, moving and swimming about, 
and the other remain perfectly still. Examine now and 
ascertain the condition of the thirst of the two at the expi- 
ration of the half hour, and we have a lesson of nature point- 
ing directly to that which we wish to effect in the directions 
that we shall presently give. The one that was passive finds 
that his desire for water is greatly lessened or entirely gone, 
while the other, who has been active, has a desire as great or 
greater than before he went into the pool ; the reason being, 



1-2(3 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

that the absorbents of the surface could not open and shut 
without the aid of the recuperative vital influence. And 
that recuperative property of the mind could not develop its 
power in the opening and shutting of the surface without a 
portion of the agency which the will employed for the pur- 
pose of moving the body about. This agency cannot be ap- 
plied to two purposes simultaneously. Then, while the will 
was thus absorbing it from the involuntary chamber for vol- 
untary purposes, it would be unreasonable to suppose that 
the recuperative power could display its influence in the 
absorption of the water on the part of the surface, by which 
the deficit was to be supplied. The other one being passive, 
so far as his will is concerned, the recuperative property of 
the mind being replenished w T ith vital agency, which the will, 
if in action would demand, sent it to the surface, opened 
and shut the mouths of the absorbents, and drank in the 
supply. Hence, for cause the one is still thirsting, and for 
cause the thirst of the other is gone. 

Can we fail to perceive, then, the different relations which 
the absorbing surface of these two occupy recuperatively to 
the water in which they are? Is the one who is passive, in a 
recuperative sense, isolated from the water to the same ex- 
tent as the one that is active? If so, we should be at a loss 
to prove what we mean by the isolated condition of the nerv- 
ous system of man, and the legitimate propriety of following 
certain directions, in order to occasion the nervous system to 
absorb an extra amount of vitality from the electricity of the 
atmosphere, in order to assume the same corresponding reac- 
tive condition. Nature here means something in this beauti- 
ful operation of the absorbing system. It is an operation 
that certainly serves as a key to unlock the mystery of the 
operation of the higher systems. Does not the condition of 



MENTAL ILCHEMW 127 

the arterial and venous blood r resent itself, showing the 
relation of the positive and negative influences in the system 
beyond it? Now, then, how T shall A manage to get his nerv- 
ous system in the same reactive condition as that of B and C r i 
We answer, that he must follow the example of the man 
who was passive in the pool. Then his recuperative power 
will enable his nervous system to absorb an extra amount of 
electricity from the atmosphere, or to assume, as the case may 
be, its condition. While the nervous system may not, in one 
sense, be isolated from the electrical fluid of the atmosphere, 
it may be so, as regards its recuperative condition ; for, cer- 
tainly, the electrical fluid is one thing, and its condition is 
another. The nervous system is one thing, and its condition, 
or the relation of its forces, another. These are all to be 
taken into the account in a regular investigation of this mys- 
terious portion of human existence. This matter being plain 
now before us, we are ready to state the different plans that 
we have found to be the best for subjects negative to effect a 
positive change in their nervous system. A should sit down, 
and, as the most convenient plan, take hold of the first joint 
of the thumb of one hand with the fore-finger and thumb of 
the other ; make pressure just hard enough to feel it, and 
close his eyes, He should keep his eyes constantly closed, 
without any effort on his part to assist the recuperative ener- 
gy, or without a thought stirring in his voluntary ehamber. 
save that which particularly relates to the sense of feeling 
occasioned by the pressure which he himself is making. This 
will, as any one must perceive, increase the electrical respi- 
ratory action of the nervous system, for the will, by thus dis- 
missing all impressions but the one from the voluntary 
chamber, needs not the vitality of more positive action. The 
recuperative powers become, therefore, increased j and hence 



128 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

the change which takes place in the respiratory action of the 
surface. The surface, by its power, is brought reactively 
into nearer juxtaposition with the vital fluid of the atmos- 
phere ; and the oneness of action on the part of the will con- 
tinually disturbing the nervo-vital fluid, occasions the reactive 
change to be effected. In other words, the oneness of action 
on the part of the will exerted in the nervous system of his 
being, corresponds to the oneness of action exerted in the 
electrical fluid of the Universe, by that God who speaks in 
thunder, and to w T hose oneness of action alone its reactive 
condition can be referred. The like oneness of action, on the 
part of the will of the subject, must of necessity occasion 
the like condition to take place in his nervous system. That 
electrical condition would be the same as that which we find 
naturally to exist in the nervous system of B and C. We do 
not see any great mystery about this, nor any special agency 
of Divine Providence in its production ; nor that it becomes 
necessary that for a man to produce it upon himself he should 
be the seventh son or the ninth son. But we do understand, 
that in order to produce it, the will has to comply with the 
conditions laid down ; that is, that it shall cease its absorp- 
tion of vitality from the involuntary powers only sufficient to 
support one impression. That impression may be mental or 
physical ; but the physical is unquestionably the best, and 
the one to which the will can sooner accommodate itself. 

We would here repeat, that as regards discovering any 
physical agent that will produce this reactive condition in the 
bodies of all men alike, those who even hint such an idea 
must be ignorant of the source that produces this change, or 
else they would not look for such a discovery within the 
realms of physical science. The only thing that can possibly 
accomplish it is, for the mind of man to learn to control the 



MENTAL WLCHBMY. 129 

will, so that it shall absorb only vitality enough to support 
one impression. 

This condition complied with, the reactive change is 
effected in five minutes. Not complied with, it could not be 
effected in fifty years. We have known persons who have 
subjected themselves for as many as forty or fifty times, 
without the least perceptible symptom of this reaction, and 
afterward, within five minutes, work an entire change in 
their nervous system, so that they became just as reactive and 
recuperative as the cases of B and C. 

This, then, is the natural plan for subjecting the nervous 
system, by the consent of the will, to the reactive influence 
of the atmosphere. We have pursued this plan for the last 
eighteen months, and declare it as a truth, that we have never 
known the least unpleasantness to originate from producing 
this change by this plan, as it appears to be natural. But, 
in the concentration of the mind upon any one object me- 
chanically, the agitation being directly to the center of the 
nervous system, it is very apt to occasion dizziness, unpleas- 
antness in the head, sometimes spasms, and other symptoms 
too tedious to mention. The reader can easily perceive the 
reason of the one, and the objections to the other. We would 
remark here, that unless a subject is actively diseased, he 
should not sit and gaze upon any object for fifteen, twenty, or 
thirty minutes, as it will produce, of necessity, [the brain 
becoming the point of disturbance of the nervous system] 
in some the unpleasant symptoms which we have advert- 
ed to. 

Attentively looking at an object, or into the eye of the op- 
erator, merely fills the indications of this oneness of action on 
the part of the will ; and the influences that have ever pro- 
duced this change in a subject in this country, or anywhere. 



130 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 



were the vital influences of the atmosphere, and not alone the 
physical vitality from the body of the operator. We there- 
fore ask scientific gentlemen to raise objections, if they can, 
to this condition of the electric fluid of the atmosphere which 
we*have named ; the relation which the nervous system bears to 
that fluid, and the different actions of the will of man upon the 
nervous system, preventing its absorption ; but when, by the 
passivity of the will, it is thus absorbed, let them repel, success- 
fully, its electro-reactive claims in the nervous system of the 
subject who thus absorbs it, and we have no more to say. 

We therefore hope, that gentlemen who say they do not 
believe in the different changes of the nervous system, and 
raise objections to it, will make this one of the points of their 
objection, for this is the point. It is the source and the 
cause of all the changes which they have seen produced in 
experiments, public or private. We do not merely believe in 
the power of this influence to produce these changes — -we 
know it to be so. Every physician knows distinctly well 
that when his patient is sick, unless he can occasion the will 
to cease its absorption of vitality from the involuntary cham- 
ber, all the medicines he can possibly administer will be of no 
avail. He may go to his apothecary-shops, and understand- 
ingly compound the chemical elements which are there, he 
may administer them as scientifically as his education and 
experience will permit him, but still the recuperative powers 
stare him in the face, and speak to him sometimes in tones 
of anguish, that an especial appeal must be made to the vi- 
tality of the atmosphere by means of electrical absorption 
by the nervous system, or the patient will die. Let us 
here, then, answer another question that is frequently put 
by scientific men — that is, if this state of things is induced by 
the passivity of the nervous system, is not the morning, or 



M3NTAL ALCHEMY. ,131 

after a man has taken a sound sleep, the best time to experi- 
ment with him ? 

Strange and unfathomable deductions sometimes come from 
human beings, but this is indeed more strange than any that 
we ha,ve heard. The man who asks this question has never 
considered the cause which speaks the electro-reactive condi- 
tion of the atmosphere ; for, had he done so, he would havB 
seen at once that there is a difference between an entire pas- 
sivity on the part of the will, and its oneness of action upon 
the nervous system. This very experiment proves, unques- 
tionably, that some influence, separate and apart from the 
electrical fluid of the nervous system of the world, is at the 
foundation of its recuperative and reactive condition. Does 
it not follow, if a man has a will, and a mind, and a nervous 
system, that for his nervous system to assume the corre- 
sponding condition, the same oneness of action must bear 
upon his finite system to constitute its electro-reactive condi- 
tion. How plain it is before us ! Let a man's will be con- 
stantly employed in the retaining of a multitude of impres- 
sions in the voluntary chamber, when it ought to be passive, 
and gust exactly in proportion as the multitude . of impres- 
sions shall unnecessarily be kept in the voluntary chamber, 
just exactly in that proportion does his nervous system be- 
come less recuperative and less reactive. 

If there were twenty gods, then the will could support 
twenty impressions in the voluntary chamber, and still the 
nervous sj^stem receive and retain its reactive condition. But 
if there is but one God who claims this reactive condition as 
the result of His power, then the will of man must bow to the 
supreme authority of that power which claims the electro-re- 
active condition of nature as its ow T n. 

Sleep, then, legitimately, is an entire passivity on the part 



132 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

of the will, for the purpose of absorbing the momentum of 
nervo- vitality which may have been, on the part of the will, 
consumed. 

The extra amount of vitality thus absorbed by sleep as- 
sumes, of necessity, as it becomes a part and parcel of the 
vitality of the individual's nervous system, the same reactive 
condition that it was in before he slept. If he was in a state 
of negative reaction before, and his sleep has refreshed him in 
consequence of a resupply from the atmosphere, still his 
nervous system is in the same condition as before. In other 
words, if he has lost ten per cent, of his nervo-vitality, or the 
consumption has been to that extent greater than the supply, 
his will becomes passive, in order that the recuperative pow- 
ers may take the vitality that it would naturally use, and 
send it to the surface for the purpose of electrical respira- 
tion, and the absorption of the same vital principle which has 
been consumed. Sleep, then, is a desire on the part of the 
recuperative powers for a resupply of the electrical fluid, as 
thirst is a desire for water to resupply the circulating fluid. 
Sleep, practically, does not involve the mind therefore, but 
its property, the will ; and as the recuperative powers seem, 
in a sense, at least, to be dependent upon the will for the 
portion of vitality which it absorbs when in action, the feel- 
ing imparted when a man is sleepy is occasioned, therefore, 
by the demand of the recuperative powers upon the will, to 
deliver up its vital agency ft>r the purpose of permitting an 
action on the part of the surface by which the vitality of the 
nervous system is absorbed. This, then, is the reason, prac- 
tically, why it becomes necessary for man to sleep. 

We cannot say more, here, in relation to the phenomenon 
of sleep, having said enough to show the reason why the extra 
amount of vitality that is received during sleep does not as- 



M E N T A L A L C II E M Y. 133 

sume the electro-reactive condition, as when following the di- 
rections of the oneness of action on the part of the will. 

In order to experiment successfully, it becomes necessary 
for the operator to regard the proper manner of making im- 
pressions. The electrical fluid is controlled by impressions ; 
and as it is a principle of its nature that the same fluid can- 
not be appropriated to two purposes simultaneously, the man- 
ner of making impressions properly becomes very important. 
If they are not made as they should be, the physical or men- 
tal impressions intended to exercise control over the subject 
will not be absorbed to the extent that they otherwise would. 

To ascertain the extent of the change which has been ef- 
fected by any one sitting, you proceed in the same manner as 
first laid down to ascertain the electro-reactive condition of 
the nervous system naturally. If there has been any change 
effected, it will manifest itself as before described. If it 
manifests itself physically or positively, as regards the sense 
of feeling, then you are ready to commence your experiments 
accordingly. To do so, take hold of the right hand of the 
subject as you would naturally, and with the thumb of your 
right hand press moderately hard just above the third joint 
of the ring finger; then place the thumb of the left hand 
upon the forehead at any point that you may desire, and, 
simultaneously with the mental impression, make the phys- 
ical, that is, upon saying to him that he cannot open his eyes, 
make the pressure upon the hand and the forehead moderately 
hard. 

If the mental and physical impression should not be made 
simultaneously, or not by a simultaneous action on your 
part, unless the subject can be controlled by a mental im- 
pression alone, you will not exercise control over him but to 
a very small extent. But when you make the impression as 

12 



134 MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

stated, you will be sure to get the extent of the control, or 
the absorption of your impressions, occasioning his actions to 
participate of their nature, against the power of his will, just 
in proportion to the extent that the sense of feeling has ac- 
knowledged the electrical succession of disturbances in the 
nervous system. 

Having ascertained that you can close his eyes, next tell 
him to stretch out his arms, to clench his fists hard, and, 
simultaneously with telling him he cannot bend them, make 
pressure anywhere between his shoulders. 

The cessation of the pressure on your part, in either case, 
as a general rule, will relieve the subject from the condition 
of your special influence ; but if it does not, tell him now he 
can open his eyes, or bend his arms, as the case may be. 

If the arms should still be a little rigid, a few impressions 
upon the shoulder with your hand, telling him, " All right," 
will make it so. Thus you leave him in the same condition 
as before your impressions were thus absorbed. 

Having this principle before you, you cannot fail to per- 
ceive the nature of all the physical experiments that you may 
see proper to make, recollecting in every instance to see that 
the absorption of your impressions, which thus exercise a 
control against the power of the will, has entirely ceased be- 
fore you attempt another experiment. 

In this way no harm can possibly result from the control 
thus exercised over the mind of the subject. The idea that 
it decreases the will-power of man has no truth in nature, 
as the will is all the time free to act, and absorbs as much 
vitality as it did before. But the reason that it cannot re- 
sist your physical and mental impressions is, that they ab- 
sorb more vitality from the involuntary chamber than the 
will can. 



MENTAL ALCHEMY 135 

The subject is therefore controlled because the impres- 
sions made upon the mind, through the nervous system, ab- 
sorb more vitality than the will can absorb. Your impres- 
sions, therefore, cannot, in the nature of things, be absorbed 
by the will-force. 

Now, then, w r e know that this is so from the facts in the case. 
You tell the subject to straighten out his arms, and make the 
impressions, and he cannot bend them. Certainly his action 
corresponds to the nature of your impressions, and not to the 
nature of his will ; for his will is trying all the time to bend 
the arms. 

How can we tell that any impressions exercise a control, 
either physical or mental, unless the physical and mental ac- 
tions correspond to the nature of the impressions. If they 
are dissimilar, then there cannot be positive control. 

If the reader will recollect what we said in a preceding chap- 
ter in relation to the doctrine of mental and physical absorp- 
tion, what we here mean will be plain and easy to be understood. 
This is what we call the positive absorption of impressions 
against xhe power of the w T ill, occasioned by the reactive con- 
dition of the nervous system. We do not mean the ordinary 
^absorption of impressions, as in other cases. They have a 
w T iil-direction ; that is, the mind participates of their nature, 
and is controlled by the consent of the will. For example, if 
the reader were to say to me, bring me some water, it is per- 
fectly clear that, if I brought the water my mind absorbed 
the impression, for the reason that my actions would corre- 
spond to the nature of the impression received. But if I 
did not bring it, he could not say that my mind positively or 
favorably received the impression, for the reason that the na- 
ture of the impression and my actions did not correspond. 
We say, positively received in the first instance, because 



136 MENTAL ALCHEMY 



the positive action on the part of the will, filling the indica- 
tions of the impression received, presupposes a certain con- 
sumption of vitality. On the other hand, if my actions and 
the impression are dissimilar, we cannot say that the impres- 
sion was positively received, because it did not occasion my 
will to consume any of my vitality. 

Still it will be perceived that the impression was not pos- 
itively but negatively received. Such impressions as these 
exercise a control over the mind by the consent of the will ; 
but the condition of things which admits an impression to be 
positively absorbed against the power of the will, invokes the 
aid and assistance of the reactive condition of the nervous 
system. 

Having, then, the manner of experimenting physically be- 
fore us, you can easily perceive what is necessary to the 
accomplishment of a mental control over the subject, and by 
observing the principles here laid down, all persons who are 
naturally in the instinctive and positive condition, or have 
induced it, by following these directions can be controlled, 
physically and mentally, in the production of the most as- 
tounding phenomena ever recorded upon the pages of science. 

In conclusion, does not this science give full, fair, and im- 
partial testimony of the existence of two beings in one 1 
What is meant when a man's nervous system is in a state of 
instinctive electro-reaction, and you can get nothing but a 
physical response, and control only his physical nature? 
Has not this very being higher reactions from his brain, and 
if he has, why are they not reached in this condition of the 
nervous system ? 

Here, then, are two subjects before you ; one in the in- 
stinctive and the other in the positive state. One exhibits 
to you the reactive power of the physical being, the other, in 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 137 

the experiments, gives off the highest reactions in the absorp- 
tion of your impressions, by which every impression that his 
spirit has received is controlled, as well as reaction on the 
part of his physical movements. This condition of the 
nervous system, then, by experiments, we see, incontrovert- 
ibly proves that two beings, the natural and the spiritual, are 
in mysterious connection with one body. 

Upon this interesting electrical platform we now stand, 
and see what is meant by the great science of mental al- 
chemy. The mind, by its reaction upon the nervous system, 
produces not only a change in the body, but in the brain also. 
By the dispensations of its electrical power, the faculty of 
alimentativeness becomes morbid, the agency which produced 
this condition is taken away, and hope is stimulated in 
turn. It is transferred to self-esteem, and the greatness of 
oneself is increased ; from thence to the organ of combat- 
iveness, causing changes in the disposition w r hich no one will 
pretend to deny. These are the alchemistic operations of 
nature ; mental, because the mind, from the absorption of 
impressions, dispenses its agency to those faculties, and oc- 
casions them to pour out their secretions. All these effects 
give different dispositions to the character of man, as is 
proved by the experiments of the operator, when this condi- 
tion of the nervous system is had. Therefore, this science 
practically proves the fact beyond all question, that when- 
ever any one faculty, which is mental, undergoes a change, 
it gives its peculiar direction to the mental being. Then 
the science of mental alchemy involves all the operations 
of psychology, magnetism, and mesmerism, and places the 
operator, in connection with the nervous system and the mind 
of the subject, in a light where he 3an, without amazement 
or awe, or dwelling on his self-importance, comprehend the 



138 MENTAL ALCHEMIST. 

reason of this, as he will call it, extraordinary power, which 
he is enabled to exert over others. 

We have thus, in compliance with the request of some 
friends, given some practical hints in relation to this subject, 
and, referring the reader to what we have also to say in rela- 
tion to electrical psychology, magnetism, and mesmerism, we 
shall close with the remark, that in the large work which we 
hope to be enabled to publish during the next winter upon 
the doctrine of physical and mental absorption, we shall ex- 
tend our practical investigations to all the departments which 
mental alchemy involves, practically as well as theoretically. 

In this connection, we will also beg leave to remark, that 
the external forces of nature are undoubtedly governed by a 
square rule ; and as such, learned gentlemen, without looking 
at the different relations which the nervous system bears to 
external nature, have endeavored to apply the same rule to 
the nervous system of man. They have found for thousands 
of years that it does not hold, but still they will not ask the 
reason why. We mean they will not ask of nature. If the 
question is not here answered in this eleetro-reactive trinity 
of the nervous system, we say it never will be ; for if the 
same electro-reactive condition is produced in the nervous 
system of three persons, then the administration of an emetic 
or cathartic would exhibit something like a square rule ; but 
if we apply the square rule to one which is negative, the 
other instinctive, and the other positive, we get deceived on 
every hand. Still, we stop not to inquire what occasions this. 
When the time shall come, therefore, and it surely will, 
when the medical profession will regard these different condi- 
tions in the administration of medicines, then they will not be 
bo much deceived in the expected recuperative results from 
the administration of the elements which nature has given 



MENTAL ALCHEMY. 139 

tbem for the especial assistance and relief of human suffering. 
It is impossible that human suffering can be imagined in the 
body without the disturbance of the forces of the nervous 
system, either by mental or physical actioi.. Therefore, we 
say, and press the question, that it is of importance for med- 
ical men particularly not to cry humbug and collusion in re- 
ference to this condition of things, but to humbly bow at the 
footstool of nature, and learn wisdom from her teachings ; and 
that it is not necessary in their professional dispensations to 
make an apothecary's shcp of the human body, in order to 
cure it of disease. 



ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 



CHAPTER X. 

Sir David Brewster— Nature and the Will of Deity— Example — Philosophic Necessity set 
aside — Skepticism by Magnetizing — Zinc and Copper Plates — Buck Eyes in Piles- 
Fluid of the Ulnar Nerve — The Name, Electrical Psychology — Card of Approbation- 
Its Practice Publicly — Gazing at an Object — The great Desideratum. 

The psychological condition of the nervous system has 
given rise to the practical developments of such new man- 
ifestations of our nature, and has of late excited so much 
interest, both in this country and Europe ; and as lecturers 
upon it have crowded every city and country place, it becomes 
necessary to delineate its character, and present its history. 
It is admitted, by men of parts, that it takes a more exten- 
sive and intelligible range than animal magnetism, hypnotism, 
or mesmerism. It has moved the learned Sir David Brews- 
ter, of Edinburg, to proclaim " that he believes in the facts 
which it unmistakably presents from the mysterious fountain 
of the soul, as much as he does in those of any physical 
science." This is saying a great deal — coming, as it does, 
from one of the most learned gentlemen that now lives. When 
we couple his testimony with thousands in our land, its attrac- 
tion, even in its range, becomes positive. We have heard it 
often proclaimed that electricity, years ago, was discovered 
to be the connecting link between mind and matter, but we 
have never heard of any experiment to comparatively settle 



ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 141 

this interesting fact; nor have we heard theoretical deduc- 
tions from such sources that would understandingiy present 
it as such. Tnerefore we are unable to see from what 
authority such a discovery came, unless it be from that of 
human power, which rises in its majesty and proclaims, that 
electricity is uncreated eternal matter, and the Deity himself 
could not have created the world but for its original and eter- 
nal presence. 

Now, then, we do not wish to venture an opinion against 
such learned and self-important deductions as these, but 
would respectfully ask any man, who may venture so far as 
to qualify the creating fiat of Deity, if electricity stands in 
the great laboratory of nature, independent of the will of God, 
who told them so 1 What guardian angel left the eternal 
throne, and whispered it in their ear, or from whence their 
authority to make the record on the page of mortality, that 
His will cannot, in the constitution of things, now interfere 
with the operations of nature ; as they liave passed under the 
control of His involuntary powers, as a piece of bread in the 
stomach passes over to the action of its involuntary powers? 
In proof of which, we are told by those who thus look beyond 
themselves, and will not allow their Maker the corresponding 
power which man can demonstrate ; and in order to set be- 
yond all question their torturing proclamations, they give the 
following illustration : " The machinery of various kinds, 
grain and vegetables, are the result of man's voluntary crea- 
tions, as well as to cook and eat them ; there the volition 
stops. The moment they are eaten our creations are fin- 
ished, and the whole naturally, and of philosophic necessity, 
passes beyond our volition into the hands of the involuntary 
power, and is governed, in all its motions and revolutions, 
aocording to the fixed laws of our organism. Therefore the 



142 ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

volition of Deity is unchangeably employed in planning, ar- 
ranging, and creating new worlds and systems of worlds, and 
peopling them with inhabitants — when the whole of such sys- 
tem is finished, and its laws regularly organized," we are told 
that "the whole naturally passes, according to the princi- 
ples of philosophical necessity , from the action and control 
of His voluntary miraculous power, and submits itself to be 
governed through the fixed laws of the universe, by the in- 
voluntary powers of the same mind." Then it is a fixed fact, 
That the will of God cannot interfere with His involuntary 
powers, as the will of man cannot interfere with his in the 
movements and the changes of his food after it reaches the 
stomach. All such philosophers as these would do well, per- 
haps, to examine more closely, and understand the subject 
upon which they think they treat so learnedly, before they 
make such extraneous records, particularly in relation to one, 
the knowledge of which seems to be their boast. If they, 
therefore, in reality, understood this subject in its practical 
tendencies, they never would have declared, from its tenden- 
cies, a limit to the power of Deity ; they would have known, 
as well as hundreds of others do, who understand the subject, 
better than to draw such conclusions — that men can elevate 
their wills, conditionally, so as to positively invade their in- 
voluntary powers, and not only interfere with the involuntary 
movements of the stonaach, but actually vomit up their food. 
Therefore, such reasoning presents the fact that God can, 
when it shall please His will, according to the constitution of 
things, interfere with the involuntary forces of the universe, 
and shake it from the center to the circumference. Hence 
we perceive that the principles of philosophic necessity ^ as 
here set forth, came from the morbid secretions of the imag- 
ination, and are not the legitimate deductions of nature. The 



ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 143 

position, therefore, assumed, no doubt, has proved more than 
such men intended ; that is, the voluntary commotions of na- 
ture, that fully tried the patriotism of the sons of men in 
days of yore ! We do not assume that the will of man can 
interfere with the reflex actions of the brain ; but would re 
mark, that any person who understands the subject of elec- 
tro-psychology, and is in the positive condition, can perform 
the experiment in point upon themselves. We know many 
who can, and have found some few in our travels, that had 
accidentally discovered that they could produce emesis at 
pleasure. 

We have made this reference, not for the purpose of vent- 
uring an opinion against those who feel at liberty to record 
such extraneous deductions, but for the purpose of defending 
the science of electro-psychology from such conclusions, as 
being foreign to any of its pretensions. While we do not 
wish to present ourselves as the great author of electro-psy- 
chology , we would remark, that we have been constantly en- 
gaged in its public presentation, and the subject of magnet- 
ism, for the last six years, and claim the right here to say 
that we first discovered the process by which it was ascer- 
tained, to a certainty, that the nervous systems of persons 
were in a state, naturally, so that impressions, properly made, 
would control them against their wills. Professor Green 
(now Bishop of Mississippi), and Professor Hooper, of " Chap- 
el Hill" Literary College, of North Carolina, who were stu- 
dents of ours five years since, made known to the world that 
the subject of animal magnetism was then presented in an en- 
tire new light. This new light stands at the foundation oi 
electrical-psychology, and the antecedent, as well as the sub- 
sequent investigations by others, fully sustain their deduc- 
tions in relation to its newness of birth. When wt visited 



144 ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

places for the purpose of lecturing, scientific men, and even 
those who believed in mesmerism, laughed at the idea that the 
natural and healthy condition of the nervous system of any 
man, should be such as to positively admit the impressions 
of another against his will. We therefore had the skep- 
ticism of even believers in mesmerism to contend with. We 
will not say that any attempts to establish the fact that such 
was the case, and that subjects could be controlled condi- 
tionally, with much more ease than they supposed, have been 
successful ; we leave that to the decision of the candid mind, 
who will now look at its great number of believers in this 
country as well as Europe. Even now we have the same 
kind of opposition from psychologist, biologist, and thusol- 
ogist, for demonstrating, before large audiences, the reason 
why that state of the nervous system, induced by looking at 
zinc and copper plates, or any other object whatever, has, 
for cause, by those who are up with the times, become obso- 
lete. They are not now used in public practice by those 
who understand the natural and scientific bearings of the gal- 
vanic and controlling processes of positive impressions upon 
the minds and nervous systems of others. They may speak 
of the virtue of the galvanic plate, held in the hand, and that 
some medium between the subject and operator is essential, 
and persons who know no better, may spend their money, as 
many have done, impressed with their virtue. Such preten- 
sions, however, will only make men who think become dis- 
gusted with the tendencies of this great department of mental 
science. Then the question arises, Why did you introduce 
them into practice? We answer, because it occurred to us 
that subjects from audiences would look at them more readily 
than they would at a ten cent piece or a wafer. But, with 
all our classes, their ofEce was explained and the reason why 



ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 14c 



they were introduced. They did fill the indication in tlte 
production of the psychological state better because they at- 
tracted the attention of the subjects more than a ten cent 
piece or a wafer, and by that means rendered their nervous 
systems more passive to the external electrical forces of na- 
ture. We never dreamed, therefore, that those we taught, or 
in turn were taught by others, merely because they could me- 
chanically make subjects perform startling feats before au- 
diences, that they would, while the audiences were caught up 
with their winders, slip in the impression of their special im- 
portance to the detriment of the science, and filling their pock- 
ets with hundreds by their sale. One even went so far as to make 
an attempt to patent them, that they might go off more readily 
to his own special interest, and that it might be handed down 
to posterity that he had made an invaluable discovery. We 
never sold fifty of them to all our classes together, and when 
w T e did they were at the prices they cost, with the explana- 
tion that they served only the purpose named. We, of course, 
would have had the right to dispose of them, but we did not 
look upon them as having any more virtue than that which 
we have named, and w r ere more than surprised that men who 
say they love the science, should thus, almost at one fell 
blow, nearly take its life by holding out their special virtues, 
and selling them at from fifty cents to one dollar each. A 
man could, with the same propriety, go to Ohio and get a 
large quantity of Buck-eyes and peddle them out, telling the 
people that they, if worn in the pocket, would cure piles, 
without explaining their action, as they do sometimes benefit 
the subject who becomes involuntarily impressed w T ith a suffi- 
cient amount of confidence in their efficacy. We hope, there- 
fore, that even this department of the great science of mind 
will not be looked upon in such lights as these th^t now stano) 

13 



146 . ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

before the world as the points of its philosophical as well as 
practical basis. 

We wish to make known, also, that those who have lectured 
publicly, and taught others, and therewith presented the idea 
that the circulation of the ulnar nerve, or any other, when 
mechanically disturbed by the physical impression of the op- 
erator, was accompanied with an injection of fluid from their 
own nervous system, by which they were enabled to control 
them, is the most extraneous deduction we have yet heard of 
in relation to its practical disposition. We hope that no man 
will look upon such morbid mental deductions in connection 
with the science. Some lecturers, perhaps, for the purpose 
of making themselves notorious, and increasing their finances 
(not for the advancement of the science, we are sure), named 
it electro-biology and thusology. It was not unreasonable, 
therefore, that many who were not conversant with the sub- 
ject, should at first suppose that they were new discoveries, 
and presented for the benefit of mankind. In relation to 
which, as we wish to attend to our own business, we will say 
no more, as all fully understand the indications which they 
filled. By psychology we mean the science of the soul of 
man (not of animals), in its reactive relations to matter ; 
and by electricity, in this sense, its relative agency both 
to mind and matter. As this fluid, then, within the body of 
the nervous system, has to be disturbed before the mind can 
receive an impression from nature, and as it also has to be 
disturbed in its response, the name electro-psychology of 
necessity presents itself. 

We have — as remarked in the preface — many such cards 
as the following, that speak pointedly in relation to the sub- 
jects upon which we have lectured, and take the liberty t& 
insert this here, that the reader may see, before he examines 



ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. • 147 

farther, what we have to say — a specimen of what others who 
have the capacity to think, reason, and understand, have said 
in their public journals about this new philosophy and this 
condition of the nervous system. 

[From the New Bedford Mercury, Nov. 7, 1850.] 
A CARD. 

The undersigned have attended the course of Electro Psychological Lec- 
tures delivered in this city by Dr. B. B. Williams, and take pleasure in 
expressing their satisfaction at his explanations of the theory of electro- 
psychology, mesmerism, and clairvoyance, and with the interesting ex- 
periments which have accompanied the explanations. 

^Ye have gained much information from these lectures, which we value, 
and are assured that all who may feel disposed to attend the course will 
acquire an amount of knowledge which will fully compensate them for 
their time and attention. 

Charles Almy, Wm. J, Botch, 

B. Rodman, A. L. Gleason, 
Sylvanus Thomas, Nathaniel Cobb, 
James B. Congdon, Edward Stetson, 

JOS. COKENT, S. Gr. DRISCOLL, 

Edw. L. Baker, Wm. Hathaway, 

C. R. Tucker, Benj. Evans, 

Wm. C. Coffin, 0. Prescot, Judge S. C'rt of Mas 



[From the New Bedford Mercury, Nov. 7, 1850.] 

ELECTRO-PSYCHOLOGY. 

Dr. Williams's Lectures on the Philosophy of Human Existence, deliv- 
ered in the city the past week, h.ive been attended by some of the most 
intelligent and cultivated among us, who express their great interest in 
the lectures and the advantage they have derived from them. From an 
attendance upon a single lecture, we were impressed favorably with the 
claims of this new theory to a full and impartial investigation. It pos- 
sesses, certainly, many interesting points relative to the causes of disease, 
its prevention and cure, and, moreover, concerning the laws which govern 
the material and spiritual universe. 131s explanations of the mysteries of 



148 ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

clairvoyance, mesmerism, and their kindred subjects, is the most satisfac- 
tory we have seen 

We are happy to learn that Dr. Williams will remain to deliver another 
course of lectures, provided a sufficient number of pupils can be imme- 
diately obtained. We have no hesitation in commending the subject as 
well worthy of public attention. 

Practically, this science simply involves the taking hold of 
the hand, and by pressing upon the nerves sufficiently hard to 
ascertain if the nervous system is reactive enough to admit both 
a negative and positive response. If so, the mind is ready to 
be controlled by psychological impression, when properly 
made. If the nervous system only negatively responds, the 
following process is instituted to cause a positive response, 
or to produce the psychological state. Publicly, those in the 
audience, wl o feel disposed, are requested to go on the plat- 
form with the lecturer, and mechanically concentrate their 
minds upon zinc and copper plates, for fifteen or twenty min- 
utes, with their faces turned to the audience, who are partic- 
ularly requested to keep still. After they have thus fol- 
lowed directions, and that too, if possible, without winking 
their eyes, the operator goes round and mechanically dis- 
turbs the circulation of the nervous fluid of the hand (not 
inject from his person), to see if their minds then, against 
their wills, positively respond to the physical pressure. If 
so, they are subjects psychologically, and in this condition 
made to do whatever the operator, if he understands the prin- 
ciples of experimenting, may command to be done, in the pro- 
duction of a great variety of wonderful and laughable phe- 
nomena. 

This is the course pursued by electro-biologist and thusol- 
ogist also, the only difference being that they cause their sub- 
jects ? while being biobgised, to sit with their backs to the 



ELEC11ICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 149 

audience. Hence the names electro-biology and thusology, 
would be more properly rendered, as all must perceive, elec- 
tro backology. And if the reader, in properly disturbing 
the circulation of the hand of another, should find that the 
mind positively responds to his pressure, he can, by making 
impressions correctly, exercise that control as well as those 
who assume extra innate greatness and strength for them- 
selves, without injecting into their nerves, as others say they 
do, any fluid from his system, by the agency of his will. All 
that you have to do now to make yourself a good psychologist, 
etc., is to understand the manner of making physical and men- 
tal impressions, and you have all here that they now teach and 
— if we understand correctly from gentlemen who learned the 
secret practically — all that they have ever taught. We do not 
speak out so plainly in relation to this matter to injure any 
one, but we do so that all may go understandingly into its 
investigation. It is useless to suppose that they will learn 
to perform any thing supernatural, or be impressed by their 
teachers, that their control upon others afterward will be the 
result of imparting their nervous fluid, or that this science re- 
cognises the psychological grip, but a mechanical pressure upon 
any portion of the nervous system, to ascertain its condition 
psychologically. In all these processes for public experi- 
ments, it will be noticed also, that, as in magnetism, it be- 
comes necessary, for cause, to occasionally demand the at- 
tention of the subjects by looking them in the eye. We 
would remark here, however, that the constant gazing at any 
object mechanically for any length of time, must of necessity 
produce an abnormal reactive condition of the nervous sys- 
tem to some extent, and that change effected by that process, 
cannot, therefore, be that natural reactive condition of the 
nervous system as is had when it is subjected naturally to 



150 ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the influence which produces it. This point will not be 
disputed by any one who understands the influence of a con- 
stant impression made upon the nervous system, by gazing 
intensely at any object steadily for half an hour on the part 
of some. We have dismissed this mechanical process, be- 
cause the one we now pursue is natural, and therefore far 
superior. First, because we have found that it will effect at 
least thirty-three and a third per cent, more, in the audience, 
and that, too, while those who are not being electrified are 
enjoying themselves in conversation as though nothing was 
going on ; secondly, the electro-reactive state induced is en- 
tirely natural ; and thirdly, the experiments are performed 
without any passes or looking in the eye to make them more 
complete, and in the production of this remarkable change in 
the nervous system, we have never known the least unplea- 
sant symptoms to follow. Therefore it will be perceived, the 
great desideratum in the nervo-vital tendencies of mind, in its 
most attractive light, is not only had, but also its practical 
availability in its more recuperative consideration. It will 
also be observed by those who become familiar with the sub- 
ject as now presented, that the science of electro-psychology 
bears practically the same relation to mental alchemy that 
mesmerism and magnetism do to electro-psychology. We 
can very well anticipate that many will think a little strange 
of the remarks here made ; but in doing so, we beg them to 
remember, that this science is as dear to our heart as it is 
to any other. 

Why should it not be, when we were the first to present it 
and safely pass it through the ordeal of public as well as 
private scrutiny ? Without vanity we say, we have never, in 
any instance, knowingly abused it, or held it forth as any 
thing supernatural. We appeal to the numerous classes we 



ELECT RiCAL PSYCHO LOG Y. 151 

have taught, who have freely spoken their own language in 
relation to our instructions, not only as regards this condi- 
tion of the nervous system, but as regards the natural view 
in which we presented it. If mesmerism, magnetism, and 
electrical psychology are all the same (the condition Jiaving 
been made because of the different conditions of the nervous 
systems admitting experiments of a different nature), then 
electrical psychology and mental alchemy are all the same. 
Although electrical psychology, theoretically, may take as 
wide a range, yet, practically, it differs very materially from 
mental alchemy. This subject now being more familiar, we 
shall next present for inspection the subject of magnetism 
and mesmerism. In concluding our special remarks upon 
this subject, the assertion is ventured, that many, no doubt, 
have experienced as well as we, the meaning of the poet's 
description of the ways of human nature, which we find thus 
understandingly recorded : 

" In the great game of life from its dawn to its close, 
There is one way to win and two ways to loose ; 
And hence, those who scan mankind and their ways, 
Find a great deal to blame and but little to praise." 






HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM 



CHAPTEK XI. 

Vitality of the Brain — Atmospheric Undulations — The Senses — Impressions supported 
beyond Consciousness — Mental Faculties — Their Secretions — Thought and Electricity 
— The Thoughts of Others — Their Reception explained — Two Ducks in a Pond — Ger- 
man Writer and Teacher — Case in Milledgeville, Geo. — Practice of Magnetism and Mes" 
merism — A Card — Dr. Esdale — The Effects of these Conditions upon the System. 

The state of the nervous system making the founda- 
tion of magnetic phenomena, which, as Dr. Carpenter very 
justly remarks, " deserves the attention of scientific physi- 
ologists as much as those of any other class of facts," now 
is the subject, of our special delineation only — its history 
being too well known for repetition. 

There never was a class of experiments about which scien- 
tific minds have speculated with more eagerness, and found 
as little " data," as these. 

Therefore we shall not say that this or that theory is un- 
true or imaginary, but attempt its delineations as we conceive 
it to be, theoretically and practically, in accordance with the 
existing principles of nature that stand at the foundation of 
the normal and abnormal, or the nervo- vital, as well as the 
nervo- extraneous relations of mind and matter. If we con- 
template man — first, through the action bf his circulating 
fluids — astonishment at once forces itself upon us, when we 
are, no doubt truly, told by physiologists that one-sixth part 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 153 



of the blood is appropriated to the vital support of the brain, 
while the brain itself weighs but one-fortieth part as much 
as the body. If, then, the blood is controlled in its move- 
ments by the express action of the involuntary elastic ra- 
diations of the nervous system, it of necessity follows, that 
a corresponding portion of the nervo- vital fluid must be 
appropriated to the brain, for the support of its physical 
and mental operations. The brain, being the point not 
only of physical but mental reaction, would, in the nature 
of things, require an extra amount of vitality compared with 
any other organ of the body. The obstructions of the subor- 
dinate organs, and the circulation, are removed only by a 
special demand upon the brain as the center of the physical 
organism. The brain, then, becomes the finite fountain, or 
battery, from which they are charged, and from which they 
receive their vital support. Does not the idea here force 
itself upon any reflecting mind, according to the established 
order of our nature, that the brain, in every sense of the 
word, even with its galvanic convolutions, is, virtually speak- 
ing, but an electrical reservoir or magnetic fountain 1 Here 
the two forces of man's physical nature, being within the 
nervous system, meet, to absorb from the mind fresh vitality 
and living power for the positive maintenance of its earthly 
tabernacle. 

Electrically speaking as regards the nervous system, we 
have its normal or healthy dispensations now before us, ren- 
dering to the brain one sixth part of all its vitality or mag- 
netic stimuli. 

If we, then, take this in consideration, and note the fact 
that atmosphere cannot legitimately enter within the body of 
the nervous system, we can easily perceive that the mind can 
only be reached through the circulation of the nervous system. 



154 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 

Atmospheric undulations or waves, produced by articula- 
tion, reach the mind, therefore, only by disturbing the nerv- 
ous circulation at the tympanum. If the circulation be thus 
positively disturbed, the undulations of the auditory nerve, 
occasioned by that disturbance, reach the mind, and the mind 
hears, and that, too, against its will. So with the sense of 
sight. If an object is held before us, with the eyes open, 
the disturbance, by its emanation upon the eye, will reach the 
mind against the will. In other words, the will, according to 
physiological usage, cannot interfere with the involuntary 
discharges from the brain, along the auditory nerve to the 
tympanum, nor the optic nerve to the eye. As such, hear- 
ing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling, belong to the in- 
voluntary powers of mind, as well as the reception, absorp- 
tion, and retention of every impression from the cradle to the 
grave. At all events, if an impression, when presented 
through this agency, does not commence at once a consump- 
tion of this involuntary power, by the reaction of the mind, 
it is perfectly clear it cannot be intelligibly retained, and no 
power that the will may possess can enable us, at any time, 
to under standingly recall it. 

We merely mention these mental phenomena that we may 
keep the fact in view, that the intellectuality of man is not 
so much the result of his voluntary, as his innate involuntary 
reactive forces. Therefore, every impression received, and 
intelligibly retained, presupposes a consumption of the elec- 
trical fluid of the nervous system, from the moment of it3 
reception. What an agitation, then, must there be, in the 
involuntary chamber, to support and intelligibly retain the 
countless millions of impressions which the mind absorbs and 
retains. This is the analyzing and digesting chamber, from 
which the stimuli of each mental faculty is derived, the re- 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 155 



suit of which is seen in the peculiar character, disposition, 
and intelligence of a man. Mark the actions of the mind, 
while bowing to the authority of combativeness and mirthful- 
ness, giving different expression to the countenance, and you 
have our meaning. Let us notice the mind and some of its 
faculties, and point out their peculiar offices, or mental se- 
cretions, before we make further deductions from this high 
intellectual chamber of thought and power. Is it not clear, 
if physiologists had not pointed out the several offices and 
secretions of each organ physically, or if the secretions of 
each were mixed up in physiology as the mind, will, con- 
science, and imagination, etc., are in mental philosophy, that 
a knowledge of that science would not be so easy on the part 
of the student. As it is by the physical characteristics,* 
then, that we are enabled, in a great degree, to understand 
the mental, it becomes necessary that we should, in the first 
instance, separate, as far as can be, their several mental 
secretions and functions, and look at the mind and its men- 
tality, through these, as much as we look at the physical 
being through the different organs and their secretions. It is 
a truth, as we have before said, that it is natural for the 
stomach to secrete the gastric juice, as well as the liver the 
bile ; but neither of these secretions take place without a 
stimulating response from the brain. It is also the nature 
of combativeness to secrete a disposition, on the part of the 
mind, to fight and quarrel ; mirthfulness, to laugh ; consci- 
entiousness, a scrupulous regard for a sense of justice toward 
God and man ; causality, a love to trace effects to their 
causes ; imagination, active conception of things communi- 
cated, the power to make new wholes out of our own creation, 
a love for the beautiful in nature, and, in its higher secre- 
tions, stamp genius with poetry and the fine arts. It would 



156 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 



run thus with every organ, or faculty of the brain, through- 
out the whole mental chamber, each one imparting its nature 
to the mind, just in proportion to their consumption of the 
nervous power. But it will be also observed, that none of 
these peculiar dispositions can be secreted, on the part of 
any faculty of the brain, without an electro-vital response 
from the mind. Then it is as contrary to our mental nature 
for a man to laugh without a stimulating response from his 
mind to mirthfulness, as it is for the stomach to pour out its 
secretions without a stimulating response from the brain. 
If " like goes to like," we have here the modus operandi of 
the development of each faculty of the brain by external as 
well as internal impressions. Can any thing in connection 
with the existence of man hear, see, smell, taste, feel, and 
vitally respond to any impression except his mind or spirit ? 
Whenever the action, therefore, of any impression calls forth 
positive reaction on the part of the mind, that positive re- 
action presupposes a direction and consumption of the nerv- 
ous power in the development and activity of that faculty in 
the brain to the one who gave it off. On the other hand, if 
the mind negatively responds, there cannot be any positive 
consumption of the vital electrical power, because of the re- 
ception of such impressions. It would, therefore, be impos- 
sible, in the nature of things, for them to develop or actively 
stimulate the corresponding faculties and dispositions in 
those who became their recipients. The blood makes quick 
successive appeals to the atmosphere, at the lungs, as its 
main point or center of vital absorption; so, also, the fluid 
of the nervous system of man has the brain for its main point 
or center, and seems to correspondingly absorb, from the 
spirit within, the vitality which imparts motion and life to the 
body as well as eloquence and intellectual power to the mind. 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 157 

If we look at man, as living and moving in the atmosphere 
with its gases, as connected with electricity, or charged with 
that elastic fluid by a mechanical adjustment of things, the 
true state of the case, in mesmeric phenomena, must, of ne- 
cessity, more plainly appear. He is then continually stand- 
ing, moving, and lying down, even in the midst of these 
elements, as all will admit. The respiratory system, adapted 
to the reception of the atmosphere and gases, and his nervo- 
periphery, adapted also to the absorption or respiration of 
the electrical fluid which is within them. Now, suppose the 
question be asked, Can a man speak without disturbing the 
atmosphere around and in him, and can he prevent that dis- 
turbance, let it be ever so slight, from moving the particles 
of atmosphere to the distance of fifty miles above him? 
Certainly not ; for the reason that he cannot speak without 
disturbing his own elements of respiration, and their connec- 
tion with those external is such as to positively forbid a 
disturbance in the one without a corresponding disturbance 
in the other. This would be a disturbance coresponding to 
a pebble or stone dropped in the ocean, it is true, but still 
the w T hole ocean would be disturbed. So with every step 
that we make upon the globe's surface, influencing its par- 
ticles to the center. Now, then, as we see the adaptation 
of means to ends in our respiratory system to the atmospher- 
ical division, the conclusion forces itself, that we cannot relax 
and contract the muscles of the throat without disturbing its 
particles, and occasioning thereby undulations or waves to 
pass from us as the starting point or center of such waves. 
Have we not the same reason to suppose, from the adapta- 
tion of our nervous system to the external electrical ocean of 
nature, that as we cannot think without not only disturb- 
ing but consuming our nervous fluid, the corresponding dis- 

U 



158 HUMAN MAGNETISM LND MESMERISM. 

turbance is given off from our nervous system and brain to 
the external electrical department, occasioning waves in it 
also to pass from us as their center? Recollect the mind 
cannot receive any impression except through electrical or 
nervo- vital agency. The atmosphere, therefore, may be vi- 
tally concerned as an undulating medium between us, still its 
office is completed in its vibrations upon the tympanum. If 
it does not meet there with a healthy circulation of the au- 
ditory nerve, the mind cannot recognize nor respond to those 
vibrations, as its medium is thus obstructed, and conse- 
quently it cannot hear. Philosophy or no philosophy, belief 
or no belief ; neither the one nor the other can change this 
condition of things of the mind, in relation to its nervo-vital 
circulation. Is there not a reason, then, why Ave hear a call 
at a distance of one hundred yards, and a reason why we do 
not, and a reason why we cannot hear, even with a perfect 
tympanum % What prevents the mental vision from seeing 
the electrical undulations passing from one human being to 
another, occasioned by thought, just as much as we can see 
the atmospherical undulations produced by speaking? Let 
the question be asked again, What is the reason that one 
man cannot know the thoughts of another, if the electrical 
undulations produced by thought reach his brain also ? This 
question certainly comes with more force, when from analogy 
we know that A, in positively recalling an impression to him- 
self, would, of necessity, produce the same disturbance in the 
nervous fluid, as B would to recall or think of the same. 
The only difference that there could be, in the nature of 
things, would be in the extent of their mental reaction. We 
answer that the reason is seen, first, in the fact, that the 
brain, being the point of physical as well as mental reaction 
and retention of all our impressions and intellectuality, is, of 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 159 



necessity, while in its natural state, positively charged with 
magnetic force. The constant involuntary reaction of the 
mind upon its nervo- vitality, in the retention of impressions 
and recalling them, makes this the great focus of giving off, 
instead of receiving primary electrical undulations. There- 
fore, it is clear, upon the plainest principle in nature, that 
any focus of agitation will successfully resist the waves from 
another focus, particularly in reaching its center, when the 
centers may be in the same innate active condition. In 
order to be more fully understood, we will illustrate this po- 
sition by two ducks in a pond of water, at different points, 
unseen by each other — each being a focus of the agitation of 
its particles, disturbing them to its circumference. Now, 
remember that two positives repel as well as two negatives, 
and that the negative or passive becomes the recipient of the 
positive, and the reader will be prepared to discover what we 
mean by presenting before him two ducks in a pond of water. 
Now look at them as in positive action. You see the waves 
or disturbances, occasioned by the one, successfully repelled 
by those occasioned by the other. Although the correspond- 
ing motion of one gives off the same waves, it is clear, for 
cause, that they cannot sensibly reach the other. There 
they remain, and never would, under those conditions, recog- 
nize the presence and motions of each other, through the 
medium of those disturbances, as long as the corresponding 
motion of both was kept up. Now, let one become quiet and 
become passive, and it will be easily imagined, as the waves 
from the other would be sure to reach him, that he would 
sensibly realize the presence and the nature of the physical 
movements of the other. Let them be placed under water, 
and the position becomes still more pertinent. Suppose the 
question still be asked, What if the reason that the waves 



100 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 



going from the one, do not, when both are in action, sensibly 
reach the other? The answer is, because the focus reaction 
of the one is now corresponding to the other. Notice now 
the voluntary and involuntary reaction of the mind upon the 
electrical fluid positively of the brain and body, in its con- 
nection with the external electrical fluid, and you have the 
source, as well as the cause, of the electrical undulations, 
which, of necessity, pass from one being to another, in con- 
sequence of thought. These electrical undulations, which 
thus pass from one being to another, from analogy bear the 
same relation to the mind, the electricity of the nervous sys- 
tem, and the electricity of the atmosphere, that the aqueous 
undulations do to the duck, his physical movements, and the 
water in the pond. Now, take into the account the fact, 
that nature has rendered the brain a magnet, in the highest 
sense, by appropriating one sixth part of the whole vital 
power to its use, and that although electricity in its external 
waves and circulation passes through flesh, blood, and bones, 
it cannot reach the mind as the sensible something in the 
brain, as long as the brain is positively charged with vitality, 
and the mind continues that involuntar}^ agitation which must 
necessarily be in the support of its multiplicity of impres- 
sions. They are, for cause, therefore, resisted; and one 
man's mind cannot become the recipient of the thoughts of 
another, as long as his brain and the nervo-vital reactions of 
the mind are active. If a man, however, from any cause, 
can so control this involuntary reaction, his mind may, and 
that, too, instantly, recognize, upon the established principles 
of nature, the thoughts or influence of the will of another, 
so as to repeat over what another may be thinking of, even 
if he be at the distance of twenty to fifty feet, and how much 
farther we will not now say. 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMEiUSM. 161 

The following, which occurred within the experience of a 
distinguished writer, is corroborative of the foregoing philos- 
ophy : 

" Zschokke, the German writer and teacher, is a peculiarly 
honorable and unimpeachable witness. What he affirms, as of 
his own knowledge, we have no right to disbelieve. Many of 
us have read the marvellous account given by him of his sud- 
Aen discovery, that he possessed the power, in regard to a few 
pecple — by no means in regard to all — of knowing, when he 
came near to them, not only their present thoughts, but much 
of what was in their memories. The details will be found in 
his Autobiography, which, being translated, has become a 
common book among us. When, for the first time, while 
conversing with some person, he acquired a sense of power 
over the secrets of that person's past life, he gave, of course, 
but little heed to his sensation. Afterward, as from time to 
time the sense recurred, he tested the accuracy of his im- 
pressions, and was alarmed to find that, at certain times, and 
in regard to persons, the mysterious knowledge w^as undoubt- 
edly acquired. Once when a young man at the table with 
him was dismissing very flippantly all manner of unexplained 
phenomena, as the gross food of ignorance and credulity, 
Zschokke requested to know what he would say, if he, a 
stranger, by aid of a secret power, should be able to tell him 
secrets out of his past life. Zschokke was defied to do that ; 
but he did it. Among other things, he described a certain 
upper room, in which there was a certain strong box, and 
from which certain moneys, the property of his master, had 
been abstracted by that young man ; who, overwhelmed with 
astonishment, confessed the theft." • 

Many glimmerings of intuition, which at certain times oc- 
cur in the experience of all of us, and seem to be nothing more 



162 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 

than shrewd or lucky guesses, may be referred to the same* 
power. 

Many cases of catalepsy have occurred where the brain 
has, by extraneous influences, also became dispossessed of its 
extra vitality, so that the will of the patient received every 
electrical undulation occasioned by the thoughts of the phy- 
sician. The patient accurately responded, to the amazement 
and wonder of the physician, as well as others who were 
present, in the communication of the thoughts of the physi- 
cian's mind. Doctor Ford, of Milledgeville, Geo., in his work 
on the Practice of Medicine, gives a very interesting account 
of the case of a little girl while suffering from a disease of a 
cataleptic nature, who responded thus, correctly, during her 
illness of months. As soon, therefore, as her health recov- 
ered, she was as far removed from this power as any one. 
There are many others of a similar character, which have been 
produced by the extraneous forces of nature. Therefore, it 
will be perceived, as miraculous and mysterious as they may 
appear, every case was as much in accordance with the ex- 
traneous forces of nature, as any other abnormal phenome- 
non. Their uncommon occurrence, however, producing a sen- 
;Uion of wonderment different from all others, because the 
condition of the nervous system, as the cause of their devel- 
opment, was unaccountable. If you will, now, observe when 
you go by the bedside, or in the chamber, of a person in this 
condition, that the brain has a deficit , naturally speaking, of 
its magnetic power, and that the electrical radiations from 
the same, are nothing more than passive, you can easily per- 
ceive the possibility of the electrical undulations from your 
brain being positive, reaching the mind of the patient, under- 
standing]} 7 , upon the principles laid down. Many persons 
can go by the cradle of an infant, and simply by looking at 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 163 



it, as they suppose, produce involuntary reaction of its spirit, 
and awake it. Adults are sometimes aroused by others in 
the same way. Therefore, the passive reaction of the mind 
of the one, and the positive reaction of the other, is the cause 
of the effect produced, and not by looking alone. There can- 
not be an effect produced without a cause ; and we respect- 
fully ask even the most skeptical in relation to these sleepy 
and mysterious movements of mind, if the circumstance of 
the special magnetic condition of the brain, taken as a whole, 
and the agitation of its vital fluid by the involuntary and vol- 
untary reaction of the living spirit within, do not present 
to him a sufficient cause why the mind of one man cannot 
receive, understanding!)^, the higher undulations from another, 
occasioned by his thought as their center, as long as the minds 
of both remain in an active state ? Is it not a fact that elec- 
tricity, in its undulatory movements, passes through flesh, 
blood and bones, conditionally? Are not the conditions here 
positive and conclusive against their passing even to man's 
mental .chamber, over which his will and mind preside, as 
long as it is armed with its positive resisting power ? If so, 
the utter impossibility of the thoughts of one man reaching 
the will and mind of another, becomes, as it is in natural life, 
a fixed fact. When the brain, from any cause, either by the 
extraneous action of nature, or by the special manipulations 
in mesmerism, becomes demagnetized, its negative and passive 
condition is plainly seen. The possibility of electrical undu- 
lations produced by the thoughts in the brain of another, 
natural and positive, reaching the intellectual attendants that 
now stand stripped, as it were, of their positive resistance, 
becomes somewhat apparent. The silent mental emotions 
of one man obtaining an intellectual response on the part of 
another thus conditioned, need not be looked upon as outside 



164 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 

of the established laws of man's extraneous nature, although 
they may be of uncommon occurrence. We cannot say more 
now, theoretically, upon this state of things, which is looked 
upon as being so mysterious, and the reason why many sup- 
pose that they can, in this condition of mind (but not in 
reality), leave the body, and not only visit the moon, but un- 
derstandingly overlook the inhabitants of different planets as 
well as the condition of the positive inhabitants of the spiritual 
world. This condition of the nervous system and mind is 
what we conceive to be the cause of such mysterious and 
dreaming phenomena. In relation to which we have not the 
time nor space to say more at present, but drop these few 
hints, in order that the reader may be enabled to enter more 
fully into its investigation with us, in a large w r ork that we 
are now preparing for public inspection, upon all these inter- 
esting subjects. Many works are now before the public, and 
we do not even record these few hints in opposition t© what 
others more experienced have penned, but simply present 
them as our interpretations of nature, that seem to stand at 
their foundation and the different conditions of clairvoyance, 
sympathetic and independent, as well as those phenomena 
that are more properly referred to the mysterious electrical 
assimilation of intelligence, from the reaction of minds natural 
and positive upon those degalvanized and negative. 

Practically, human magnetism, as it is understood through- 
out the country, is as follows : Take a ten cent piece, put it 
in the palm of one hand, with the ball of the thumb of the 
other pressing upon it, with a will that it should be charged 
with your nervous fluid, and when it becomes hot or percep- 
tibly warm, it is then said to be magnetized and ready for 
use — (to be kept separate from any other, that it may not 
lose its magnetic fluid). Now, tell your subjects to get an 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 165 

easy position, which they can maintain for twenty minutes or 
more — place the piece thus magnetized in the palm of one 
hand, the back of which should rest in the other; place their 
eyes firmly upon the piece, not to take them off, or wink 
them, to prevent the influence ; and when their eyelids be- 
come heavy, let them close. When they close, make a few 
passes from the head down to the neck and shoulders, and 
place a half dollar, prepared in the same way, before their 
eyes that are now closed, then say, Open your eyes and fix 
them upon the piece, and do not take them off. Now carry 
it around the head for two or three times, noticing carefully 
for the peculiar glare of the eye, which indicates that they 
are indeed fixed upon the piece. Then say, Now you cannot 
take them off; and, if he cannot, you have him magnetically 
under your control, so that he is compelled to do whatever 
you tell him, and, if a very easy subject, whatever you will. 
This condition of the nervous system renders it impossible 
that the mind should retain any thing more than a dreaming 
recollection of what they have been made to do. It seems 
also to correspond to the condition of the nervous system at 
the foundation of somnambulism. 

We merely mention the preparation of the coin that the 
reader may be informed as regards practical magnetism. 
When you wish any thing done, if the subject is rather hard to 
move experimentally, say to him, When I count two or four, as 
the case may be, you will be compelled to act in accordance 
with what I say. Make the impressions accordingly, and if 
he is magnetized, your control over him will be positive. 
This plan has now become obsolete also ; and how so many 
learned gentlemen should have become impressed with the 
virtue of the coin any more than a wafer as a medium for the 
operator, is indeed strange. In the days of witchcraft, when 



166 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 

old ladies and consequential old men believed that they could 
bewitch, by their influence, even at any distance, it would 
have looked a little more reasonable ; but with the lights be- 
fore us, how any mind can even suppose that they possess 
any specific virtue more than an object to look at, is unac- 
countable. There are many respectable-looking phreno-de- 
velopments in the world that believe in their positive and 
specific agency ; and with confidence proclaim that, because 
they are held in the hand as described, the will charges them 
with their fluid, and that that fluid works magnetic wonders 
in the nervous system of subjects. Psychologist, biologist, 
and thusologist say as much of the zinc and copper plates, 
because there is chemical action taking place by their juxta- 
position, evolving electricity, as is known by the touch of the 
tongue. Doctor Braid, who is known favorably in this field 
of investigation, in producing the state which he calls hypno- 
tism, directs the subjects to get an easy position, and places 
an object so that to see it requires an upw T ard and backward 
position of the eye, and under this stretch of their wills to 
keep their eyes fixed upon the object, their eyes, if they are 
susceptible, involuntarily close ; and by a few passes, as be- 
fore, and sometimes without them, they are rendered fit sub- 
jects for hypnotic experiments. Pathetism is another name 
given to this abnormal condition of the nervous system — the 
only difference being that the lecturer has an object for the 
whole audience to look at, fixed upon the stand, upon which 
they are requested to look, while the pathetizer is lecturing — 
all keeping perfectly still. Those that are very pathetic or 
susceptible, or have been pathetized before, by thus fixing 
their attention, fall into the same abnormal condition, and 
by a few passes by the operator, over and upon their heads, 
a will communication is said to be had, so that the pathetic 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 167 

feelings of the operator pathetizes the subjects to see what he 
sees, hear what he hears, and, in fact, to do his will, wheth- 
er it be to remain on earth, or visit the planets and return 
with a true account of the nature and character of their spe- 
cial productions ; besides many other wonderful develop- 
ments, which, if true, are not only supernatural, but real an- 
gelic flights that outstrip electricity itself. We do not ven- 
ture an opinion here in relation to the course which others 
have pursued ; indeed, it would be gratuitous ; and w T e only 
give them a practical touch, so that the reader may have fair- 
ly before him the different magnetic and pathetic processes. 

The following card will show that w r e have had experience 
also in this field of magnetic phenomena : 

Ckapel Hill College, N. C, Nov., 1847. 
The undersigned have "witnessed the experiments, and attended the pri- 
vate lectures of Dr. B. B. Williams, on mesmerism and animal magnet- 
ism. The phenomena exhibited in the latter presented the subject in a 
new light, and were of such a character as to compel us to believe in the 
reality of the principle which produces these remarkable effects. The 
experiments were conducted with the utmost fairness, and the operator at 
all times invited the most rigid scrutiny. 

We take pleasure, also, in bearing testimony to the gentlemanly and 
obliging deportment of Dr. Williams, during ■ ur brief acquaintance with 
him. 

W. M. Green-, Professor (now Bishop) of Miss. 
J. D. B. Hooper, Professor. 

Mesmerism is, properly speaking, that condition of the 
nervous system which places the mind in the most abnormal 
reactive condition ; or, as more commonly expressed and un- 
derstood, as falling into a trance. — (Dr. Eisdale, on Mes- 
merism.) The extraneous forces of external and internal na- 
ture have oft times produced this singular condition, so that 
subjects have remained several days unconscious of all me- 



168 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 



chanical impressions. This being the example which the 
mesmerizer aims to follow by the following process — A, the 
mesmerizer, having a plus amount of vitality, compared with 
B, takes hold of B's thumbs, forming an electrical circle 
from brain to brain, through their nervous systems. Now 
directing B to look steadily in his eye, and to be passive, and 
not resist the influence he receives. A looks the subject also 
steadily in the eye, with his will active, as it is said, in dis- 
pensing his nervous influence into the nervous system and 
brain of B, the subject, until his eyes involuntarily close. 
Then A commences gently with his negative manipulations, 
by his hands, from the center to the circumference of B, un- 
til he has taken away, by his *passes, the extra amount of 
positive vitality in the brain of B, or produces that abnor- 
mal reactive condition of the brain, nearly corresponding to 
that of a trance. This is ascertained by inflicting pain, and 
receiving no response from the mind of the subject. He 
now places himself in positive u rapporte" and influences 
the mind of B, by his mental efforts upon the theoretical prin- 
ciples before laid down. In other words, the will of the 
subject becomes the obedient recipient of the will of the op- 
erator, and causes the mind to move and act, as w 7 ell as 
taste x smell, see, and hear whatever A may will. Here, 
then, is the relation between the operator and the subject, 
where one man's mind may become the recipient of the 
thoughts of another, in accordance with the extraneous opera- 
tions of nature. 

We would enter no objection to the influence of the special 
law of equilibrium in this instance; and the subject may and 
does receive a portion of the physical influence which thus 
overcomes him from the operator ; but we deny the fact that 
that influence is competent to produce this wonderful change 



HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 1G9 

in the nervous system of the subject. For the reason, first, 
that it is utterly impossible for the subject to be thus passive 
to the influence of the operator, without at the same time 
being passive to the positive influence of atmospheric elec- 
tricity ; and, secondly, that if the same subject will gaze at 
an object, without being in contact with another body, with 
the same passivity of his will and mind, the involuntary fall- 
ing of his eyelids, and sensations of sleep, will be as forcibly 
produced by the external agency of electricity alone. This, 
in our opinion, from the adaptation of means to ends, has 
always been the great source vitally concerned in the pro- 
duction of this abnormal and truly wonderful condition of the 
mind and body. As the question is often asked, Of what use 
is any department of this subject ? we would refer the reader 
to the extraordinary cures, as reported by Dr. Eisdale of the 
mesmeric hospital at Bengal, and to those performed by dif- 
ferent lecturers since the introduction of mesmerism, and 
more especially to the recuperative physiological condition of a 
subject in this state, as seen in the healthy respiratory action 
of the surface, and the soft, regular, bounding pulse. We 
would say to those who are already in the enjoyment of good 
health, with all due deference to those of a contrary opinion, 
that we cannot see how the production of this condition of 
the nervous system can do their minds or bodies any good. 
They should, therefore, be cautious in suffering such pointed 
changes of their nature when their recuperative powers do 
not demand them. 

Dr. Eisdale states, in his work on mesmerism, that he 
never knew the least injury to result from the production of 
this condition. Neither have we ever known of a case that 
was injured in the least degree by the production of this con- 
dition or the higher conditions ; but that is no reason why 

15 



270 HUMAN MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 

persons in health should permit this negative state of the 
brain to be produced, as the reactive condition of the 
nervous system can be had naturally, leaving the brain 
positive. 



DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Brain— Throwing a Stone— Its Disturbance of the Nervous System— Co-operadve 
Influence of Mind- The Vis-medicatrix Naturae— Source of Mental and Physical De- 
velopment—Consultations, Physicafand Mental— The Will— Involuntary Reflex Dis- 
charges— Life not Electricity, but a Principle of Spirit— How Developed— Mental Im- 
pressions Authoritative— An Appeal to Nature 

Under this head we have a subject as vast and compli- 
cated as nature herself, and we shall therefore condense what 
we have to say. The brain, recollect, is the center of our 
physical organization, as well as the reactive dome of the 
nervous system. From the brain we have, from the cradle 
to the grave, involuntary or reflex electrical discharges, 
which, by their elastic streams, enable the heart to circulate 
the blood, and the respiratory muscles to perform their office 
even while we are asleep. Now, let us look at the recuper- 
ative arm as it undulates forth from the involuntary chamber, 
by a disturbance of the nervous fluid , that we may see, not 
only a source of disease, but the reason that sanative im- 
pressions upon the mind produce, conditionally, a sanative 
and healing influence upon the body. We will not theorize, 
but take the facts as they are. Therefore we take the fol- 
lowing to illustrate our position ; If a stone be thrown at A, 
and it strike him on any part of the body — say, for example, 
the foot — it causes a mechanical disturbance of the solids 



172 DISEASES AND THEIB MODE OF CURE. 

and fluids o: the body at that point, which is positively con- 
nected with the brain by means of the electrical fluid in the 
nervous system. This disturbance, it will be admitted, is 
mechanical, and as such, occasions a succession of waves, or 
undulations, to pass instantly from that point to the brain — 
the mind reacts, and occasions a succession of returning 
waves, or undulations, to the part, bringing with them an ex- 
tra amount of fluids, which distend the blood-vessels and 
compress the nerve. This is the cause of the irritation, 
pain, and inflammation which follow the injury received. 
Now, then, suppose the question be asked, In which of these 
undulating movements of the nervous fluid do we behold the 
healing power ? Not in those that go to the brain, we are 
sure, but in those that come from it. Without the latter there 
will be no response, and if there is no response, there cannot 
be any feeling or positive inflammation in the part injured. 
Then, those which go to the brain are mechanical, and those 
that return are the natural or chemical, by which the parts 
are restored to a normal condition. If they are too great 
from the brain, positive chemical action is the result, and in- 
flammation and gangrene of the part presents itself just in 
proportion as the reaction shall throw the two forces out of 
balance at the point injured. If the brain does not suf- 
ficiently respond, the parts cannot be healed. If that reac- 
tion or response should continue sufficiently great, so as to 
keep the sense of feeling recognizing the injury, the experi- 
ence of all men proves that the parts cannot be healed. It 
is a fixed fact in the principles of natural physiology (but 
not as yet in the physiology of men), that the mind has to be 
consulted in relation to the cure of every disease that its 
body can have. The diseases of the body cannot be cured 
independent of this response, and nothing can give it save 



DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 173 



the spirit within the brain. If a man, therefore, takes med- 
icines, they are obliged to have the co-operative influence of 
this response from the brain, before their properties can be 
chemically set free in the discharge of their sanative influ- 
ences. Then, it is this response, as strange as it may appear 
also, that creates and cures, as well as sometimes destroys 
and kills. If it be a normal response, it is unaccompanied 
with pain, and the part quickly heals. If an abnormal re- 
sponse, pain and inflammation will necessarily follow in the 
prevention of the healing power of nature, in bringing nerve 
to nerve, and blood-vessel to blood-vessel, etc. Nature, 
then, in this sense, means a response from the brain suffi- 
cient to give her healing force additional preponderance, pro- 
portionate to the injury to be healed, or the disease to be 
cured, producing an easy relation of the two forces at the 
part, which is accompanied with but little pain or sensation. 
Then the normal relation of these two forces builds up the 
parts injured or diseased, under the influence of the chemical 
and healing undulations that come from the brain. You may 
call these undulations the ancient " Vis-medicatrix Natu- 
res" or whatever you please. They are at last nothing but 
the healing power of the living spirit which comes for the 
purpose of setting to rights and repairing the different sys- 
tems of the body. In the stillness of the night they seem to 
steal away from the presence of the will and mind for the 
purpose of performing this arduous and recuperative task. 
Does not a normal relation of the mechanical and chemical 
forces, at any part diseased or injured, result in another effect 
— that is, the cure ? 

We repeat here, that there never was any thing more clear 
than that the mind is, of necessity, consulted in the cure of 
every disease. Learned men^ however, would have us be- 



174 DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 

lieve that medicines being, as they are, physical, produce 
their specific vitalizing effects without consulting the living 
spirit, or independent of any application to that source, as 
though the responses of the spirit do not govern the physical 
as well as the intellectual man. If this be so, what " thorns 
shoot up in every thought," at the idea that we were sent to 
school to get mind. Is this a fact, or were we sent there to 
subject our infant germs to impressions naturally, to call forth 
our higher responses in the development of our innate intel- 
lectuality and mental strength? By a constant attendance 
upon gymnasium exercises, the physical responses of the 
mind are called forth in the full development of the flexibil- 
ity and strength of the physical man. In either case, must 
we not have an innate something, of a nature to respond to 
these impressions, before we even see the gymnasium, school- 
house, or college ? Are these not, then, two great sources 
of our mental as w r ell as physical development, instead of 
their creation? How, then, can we say that medicines, swal- 
lowed by a patient unconscious, do not physically consult the 
mind before they can produce their specific results ? Our 
intellectuality is retained only by the involuntary reactions of 
the living spirit upon the nervous system, independent of con- 
sciousness. Can a Doctor Bush, or a Sir David Brewster, 
at will, make themselves idiots, or at pleasure arrest their 
higher reactions, which stand at the foundation of their intel- 
lectuality and learning? If not, this point is conclusive, that 
those higher reactions continually go on independent of con- 
sciousness. Why may not a physical response take place 
from the living spirit, unconscious, as the medicine swallowed 
must, of necessity, disturb the nervo-vital circulation, and oc- 
casion its firm elastic particles to be moved to the center? 
Little children and adults, with diseases that produce posi- 



DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 175 

tive disturbance of the brain, are examples of this kind. 
Then the mind does, even in this condition, physically re- 
spond to the impressions mechanically made by the calls of 
its physical nature, and its physical response enables the 
remedies given to produce their specific results. This un- 
conscious mechanical and chemical condition, occasioned by 
the action of the nervous system and reaction of the mind, re- 
stores the sanative relation of the parts diseased. Hence it 
will be perceived that the physician has placed within his 
reach, by nature, in reference to the positive and negative 
reactions from the brain, her great laboratory of physical 
agents, each one producing its specific action upon the ner- 
vous system, increasing or decreasing the chemical condition 
of any part diseased, by increasing or decreasing this reac- 
tive and physical response, which brings with it the blood 
and fluids. These, in some instances, seem to overflow, as 
if to hide from the world its diseased parts, and almost speak 
intelligibly the secret emotions of a thoughtless bosom. 
Does not nature say to man, you can only become my phy- 
sician by virtue of the physical agents with which my bosom 
is filled? They are for you to administer, for the express 
purpose of holding a physical consulation with the spirit of 
the patient, according to the case, to restore any abnormal 
condition that may occur. Notwithstanding they may be 
endowed with a specific healing virtue, by the properties they 
possess, still they speak not their power in the restoration 
of diseased nature, without the co-operation and healthy re- 
sponse of the brain. Is the stomach adapted to the recep- 
tion of food and water — the lungs to atmosphere and the 
gases, and the nervous system to positive and negative elec- 
tric influences? If so, we answer, that this living spirit, 
which looks out from behind its electrical sparkling of the 



170 DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE 



eye, is adapted to the reception of impressions. Impure im- 
pressions cause an extraneous expenditure of its innate 
strength and reactive mentality, when they are positively ab- 
sorbed, phrenological^ and theologically, as well as the pos- 
itive reception and consumption of impure food and water 
produce an unhealthy condition of the innate strength and 
physical reaction of the brain and body, physiologically and 
electrically. The main point in the cure of disease, then, 
seems to be to carefully inspect the condition of the patient, 
and particularly the reflex action from the brain, accompa- 
nied as it is, sometimes, with a higher response. Can the 
brain react without the presence of the living spirit ? Is not 
the spirit stimulated to its inherent action by external im- 
pressions 1 If so, we cannot see why those impressions may 
not occasion it - , conditionally, as well as physical agents, to 
increase or decrease, according to the impression made, its 
involuntary discharges. 

If the healing and recuperative power of the body cannot 
be had without these discharges or radiations from the brain, 
and from the region beyond consciousness, it of necessity fol- 
lows that these, being electrical, act as the agent of the 
mind or spirit for the purpose of imparting the principle of 
life to the body. Electricity cannot, in the constitution of 
things, be that principle which nature presents as life, but 
the agent by which it is materially developed. Life, there- 
fore, is a principle primarily of the spiritual world, devel- 
oped by the action of electricity upon matter. Spirit is a 
special emanation from that world, and therefore must, in a 
special sense, possess all the properties, principles, and ele- 
ments from whence it came. The two forces of the elec- 
trical fluid meet at the great center or sun of our solar sys- 
tem to absorb this principle of life from the spiritual world, 



DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 177 

and by their connection and action upon matter, make it 
manifest in the support of the material world, its creations, 
and orderly motions ; even so, the two forces of the fluid in 
the nervous system meet at the brain of man for the purpose 
of absorbing the principle of life from the spirit for the body, 
its organs and various movements. 

Does not the mind, on the positive reception of sorrowful 
and fearful impressions, withhold those discharges which pro- 
duce weakness and debility of the body? Does not the mind, 
upon the reception of the impressions of joy and pleasure, 
increase those discharges, and buoy up the whole being? It 
is therefore the different conditions of the mind (not imag- 
ination) which give life and vital action to the negative and 
positive sparklings of the nervous system. Its negative and 
positive actions open and close the respiratory apparatus in 
the positive and negative consumption of external elements. 
The crimson streams which frolic positively and negatively 
from the center to the circumference of the circulating sys- 
tem, depend upon their vital relations. Then we say, the 
remedial tendency of impressions made upon the mind from 
the positive authority of the nervous system, dispenses, from 
the brain to the body, the healing power as well as physical 
agents, when taken into the stomach or applied to the exter- 
nal surface. 

If the involuntary discharges from the brain are positively 
withdrawn from the hands or feet, can the will move them ? 
In other words, if they do not positively consume the vital- 
ity of the brain from the region be} T ond consciousness, can 
the will raise them from their place, although they are nat- 
urally, though negatively, attached to the body? This would 
be contrary to nature, as the will, or volition, has no power 
save that which is absorbed from the involuntary chamber. 



178 DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 

As well might a man think of recalling an impression re- 
ceived years ago, without its constant involuntary consump- 
tion of his nervo-vitality by the reaction of the mind, inde- 
pendent of consciousness. This is the involuntary depart- 
ment over which the mind presides, in the great economy of 
human existence. Its innate reactive power gives life and 
vitality to all the physical and mental functions that are de- 
veloped in the great chamber of special mortality. Men of 
science may cling, by the power of conventional usage and 
early education, to the innate curative power of matter, and 
refuse their assent to the special stimulation of mind by im- 
pressions in the cure of diseases, yet the voice of nature 
heeds them not, and her cries and groans, which come up to 
them from every quarter, will continue to ask, What is the 
objection to making positive applications to the living spirit 
itself, to cure the aches and pains which neither your saddle- 
bags nor apothecary-shops, with years of study and experi- 
ence, can in the least mitigate ? 

Is it because it is more scientific to make applications by 
disturbing the solids and fluids, and from thence the nervous 
system, to obtain the reflex or vital action from the brain by 
the administration of medicines, than it is to obtain this reflex 
action by impressions at once upon the mind, clad with reac- 
tive authority of the nervous system, to produce the same, 
and, in many instances, a much happier result ? 

We give the following, among the many cases which the 
reactive authority of the nervous system has cured upon the 
principles laid down, after all physical remedies had become 
inert and powerless in obtaining this co-operative action of 
the mind in the cure of the diseases of the body. 

The first case that we will mention is that of a young lady 
of Lynchburg, Va., who had been confined to her bed and 



DISEASES AND IHEIR MODE OF CURE. 179 

unable to walk for about eighteen years. Her disease, which 
was a disease of the spine, had baffled the skill of all the 
physicians in that section, and was pronounced incurable by 
physicians of the best skill in Philadelphia, to whom it ha& 
been reported. We have a certificate from this lady to the 
effect that, under our treatment, she was enabled to walk 
within one hour from the time we first saw her, and that she 
was within a few weeks restored to the enjoyment of excellent 
health. 

Another remarkable case is that of a young lady, who was 
thrown from a horse, by which she received an injury of the 
spine, resulting in complete paralysis of the inferior extrem- 
ities, that resisted all the scientific applications and efforts 
that could be made for eighteen months, and was restored by 
this agency alone in three or four weeks (four years since), 
and is now married and doing well. 

Another case of a young lady, of high respectability also, 
who had been laboring under convulsions for the space of five 
years, whose restoration resisted extraordinary efforts on the 
part of her friends, and in such a condition that she could 
not be left alone, remarkable to i elate, was cured by this 
agency in one week (three years since), and is now enjoying 
fine health. 

We will mention one more — that of an elderly lady, whose 
mind had lost all its attractions for her friends, and even her 
husband — who was restored in one week to her previous nat- 
ural condition of mind. 

We need not be surprised, therefore, that men who thus 
believe in the innate curative power of matter, separately and 
apart from the co-operative action of the living spirit, should, 
by the administration of drugs, inflict wounds both of body 
and mind which their combined skill cannot heal. Oh, na- 



180 DISEASES AND THEIR MODE OF CURE. 

ture, why dost thou not occasion man to acknowledge thy 
ways in the treatment of diseases ? Swayed as thou art by 
the law of equilibrium, occasionally setting the heavens on 
fire, and shaking the globe beneath us, why hast thou made 
us the creatures of time and circumstances which seem not 
to spare the cries of the infant, the lamentations of the de- 
voted mother, nor the deep-heaving sighs of the widowed 
bosom ? 

Did " the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of 
God shout for joy," when our destruction, pain and death, was 
deposited also in that which thou wouldst give us to eat? 
Strange and unfathomable demonstration of kindness to thy 
children ! We would still torture thee, if we knew how, until 
thou wouldst plainly answer the question, Why didst thou 
speak us into existence, to look abroad for a few days upon 
thy works, and gather, as our only reward, pain and misery ? 
Why, in the midst of this pain and anguish, suffer the cold 
and chilly hand of death to snatch us from all that is dear on 
earth, and force us back into apparent nonentity? 

We ask thee for those that are gone and even now stand 
before our mental vision like the distant isles that slumber 
in thy aqueous bosom. Are they gone forever, or have they 
passed into that state where they may behold the beauties of 
that interior world of which the Australian sky is but a faint 
impression? If so, do they fully realize " the times of the 
restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth 
of all His holy prophets since the world began," and freely 
forgive thee, for thy torturings heija? 

M Here smiles must hide the breaking heart, ^ 
And cheerful words, the mute despair, 
Here friends must meet, and love, and part : 
But not so there." 



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